Major John F. Lacey 

Memorial Volume 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



ODD 1707^1 lfc.0 




Class 
Book 



MAJOR JOHN F. LACEY 

MEMORIAL VOLUME 



9f TnMMfW< 
SEP 15 1919 




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MAJOR JOHN F.LACEY 



MEMORIAL VOLUME 



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PUBLISHED BY THE 

IOWA PARK AND FORESTRY 
ASSOCIATION 



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THIS VOLUME IS DEDICATED TO MRS. 
MAETHA NEWELL LACEY BY HER MANY 
FRIENDS THROUGHOUT THIS LAND 



THE TORCH FRE3 

CEDAR RAPIDS 

ICWA 



PREFACE 

It is with great pleasure that the Iowa Park and For- 
estry Association presents to the many friends of the 
Honorable John F. Lacey, lawyer, statesman, soldier, 
citizen, and lover of nature, a collection of his im- 
portant papers on natural resources, the protection of 
game, the establishment of forest reserves, and the pro- 
tection of our national parks. Moreover, there was 
added to the above a number of Memorial Day addresses. 
There were few in our broad commonwealth who could 
give us better patriotic addresses than Major Lacey. 
There have also been added a few of his many addresses 
made at soldiers' reunions. Here, as elsewhere, the 
Major spoke with fervid eloquence. He was a great 
friend of the soldier ; no truer or better champion of the 
old soldier ever sat in the halls of Congress. When the 
history of game protection and forest conservation shall 
be written, a large amount of credit will be given to the 
Major. As a friend and neighbor he will ever rank among 
the first of the citizens of Oskaloosa and Iowa. 

It fell to the writer, representing the Iowa Park and 
Forestry Association, to gather the material in this 
volume. I am greatly indebted to the many friends of 
Major Lacey who have made possible this publication, 
and to his daughter, Berenice Lacey Sawyer, for their 
assistance, to Miss Lena Eowe for copying the manu- 
script, and to Miss Harriette S. Kellogg for proof read- 
ing and other valuable assistance. 

L. H. Pammel 
Ames, Iowa 
April 1, 1915 



CONTENTS 



List op Patrons 

List op Members 

Biographical 

In Memory op Major Lacey 

By Hon. James A. Davitt 
John F. Lacey 

By William T. Hornaday 
Tribute to Major Lacey 

By Col. G. O. Shields 

John F. Lacey 

By Hon. Edward H. Stiles 

Major Lacey and the Conservation op our Resources 

By L. H. Pammel 

Reminiscences op Congressman Lacey 
Iowa's Congressman at Home 
Funeral op Major Lacey 
A Poem — John F. Lacey 

By Major S. H. M. Byers 

Funeral Sermon 

By Eev. Allen Judd 

Resolutions 

Addresses, Papers, and Letters op Major Lacey 
Destruction and Repair of our Resources 
Forestry ....... 

Forest Vital to Nation 's "Welfare 

On Forestry 

Homesteads in Forest Reserves 
Forestry-Tree is Mother op the Fountain 
Grazing Privileges on the Public Lands 
The Public Domain .... 
Powers op the Department op Agriculture 
Interstate Commerce in Game and Birds 



XI 

xiii 
1 
3 

12 

16 

19 

36 

48 
50 
52 
56 

57 

60 

67 

69 

78 

88 

92 

99 

103 

116 

125 

136 

141 



CONTENTS 



Bison Preserve .... 
How to Save our Birds and Mammals 
Protection to Game and Birds 
Bird Protection .... 
Statement on Game Protection . 
Federal Protection op Migratory Birds 
Two Letters from Ex-President Roosevelt 
A Letter on Migratory Birds 
Lacey on Fish and Game Preserves 
Advance in Game Protection 
Forest Reserves as Breeding Places 
Petrified Forest National Park . 
Preserving Petrified Forests 

Pajarito 

Cliff Dwellers' National Park . 

On Pensions 

Northwest Iowa Veteran Reunion 
Why Do We Create Battlefield Parks 

Memorial Day 

Patriotism 

Independence Day .... 
Excerpts from Address at Emmetsburg 
Old Friends and Neighbors . 

Pilgrim Day 

Old Settlers' Meeting . 
The Louisiana Purchase 
The Monroe Doctrine . 
Reminiscences of Oskaloosa City Park 

Penn Day 

RrvER and Harbor Improvements . 
On Stock Exchanges 

Alaska 

Harvest Festival Address 

Letter from Colonel A. W. Swalm 

Letter from General James Rush Lincoln 

Excerpts from the Autobiography of John F. Lacey 

Index 



154 
160 
168 
172 
175 
178 
183 
185 
187 
193 
195 
203 
207 
210 
220 
224 
232 
247 
256 
264 
276 
287 
290 
301 
307 
313 
328 
342 
350 
357 
361 
365 
367 
371 
373 
375 
425 



PATRONS 



Ames, Asa L. . 
Anderson, Lew W. 
Baldwin, W. W. 
Barring-ton, E. P. 
Bowdish, J. W. . 
Boyd, W. R. 
Brewer, Luther A. 
Brewster, Eleanor Lacey 
Brewster, Doris . 
Brewster, James B. 
Burrell, Walter C. 
Byers, Major S. H. M 
Christian, G. M. 
Cole, Cyrenus . 
Cowan, Wm. R. 
Dawson, A. F. 
Devitt, James A. 
Dodge, G. M. . 
Edmundson, J. D 
Foster, Thomas D. 
Greene, Wesley . 
Harlan, E. R. . 
Hoffman, C. V. . 
Hornaday, W. T. 
Howard, H. S. . 
Jerrel, B. 0. 
Johnson, I. C. . 
Kalbach, George 
Kalbach, W. H. 
Keating, W. H. . 
Kellogg, Harriette 



. Traer, Iowa 

Cedar Rapids, Iowa 

Burlington, Iowa 

Des Moines, Iowa 

Des Moines, Iowa 

Cedar Rapids, Iowa 

Cedar Rapids, Iowa 

San Francisco, California 

San Francisco, California 

San Francisco, California 

Oskaloosa, Iowa 

Des Moines, Iowa 

Des Moines, Iowa 

Cedar Rapids, Iowa 

Oskaloosa, Iowa 

. Davenport, Iowa 

Oskaloosa, Iowa 

Council Bluffs, Iowa 

Des Moines, Iowa 

. Ottumwa, Iowa 

Des Moines, Iowa 

Des Moines, Iowa 

Oskaloosa, Iowa 

w York Zoological Garden, New York City 

Oskaloosa, Iowa 
Oskaloosa, Iowa 
Oskaloosa, Iowa 
Oskaloosa, Iowa 
Oskaloosa, Iowa 
Oskaloosa, Iowa 
. Ames, Iowa 



Xll 



PATRONS 



Lacey, Mrs. Martha N. 
Laeey, W. R. 
Lane, Joe R. 
Lazell, Frederick J. 
Macbride, T. H. 
Mahon, Samuel . 
Malcolm, J. 0. . 
McCoy, Ben 
McNeill, James F. 
Milliman, J. C. . 
Nash, Frank 
Oppenheimer, Art 
Pammel, L. H. . 
Preston, Judge Byron W. 
Putnam, H. S. . 
Rankin, E. N. . 
Ray, W. G. 
Reynolds, S. V. . 
Rickey, Mrs. A. B. 
Sargent, A. H. . 

Sawyer, Mrs. Berenice Lacey 

Sawyer, Carroll 

Schee, Geo. W. 

Seevers, G. "W. 

Sheriff, H. H. 

Shields, G. 0. 

Shimek, B. . 

Smith, W. I. 

Spencer, A. P. 

Spencer, H. L. 

Stern, Almor 

Stiles, E. H. 

Swalm, Albert W. 

Swalm, Mrs. A. W. 

Walling, Charles S., Oskaloosa Herald 

Went worth, E. N 



Oskaloosa, Iowa 

Oskaloosa, Iowa 

. Davenport, Iowa 

Cedar Rapids, Iowa 

. Iowa City, Iowa 

. Ottumwa, Iowa 

Oskaloosa, Iowa 

Oskaloosa, Iowa 

Oskaloosa, Iowa 

Logan, Iowa 

Oskaloosa, Iowa 

Oskaloosa, Iowa 

. Ames, Iowa 

Oskaloosa, Iowa 

. Davenport, Iowa 

. Tarkio, Missouri 

Grinnell, Iowa 

Oskaloosa, Iowa 

. Oskaloosa, Iowa 

Cedar Rapids, Iowa 

Oskaloosa, Iowa 

Oskaloosa, Iowa 

Sheldon, Iowa 

Oskaloosa, Iowa 

Oskaloosa, Iowa 

New York, New York 

. Iowa City, Iowa 

Council Bluffs, Iowa 

Oskaloosa, Iowa 

Oskaloosa, Iowa 

Logan, Iowa 

Pasadena, California 

Nottingham, England 

Nottingham, England 

Oskaloosa, Iowa 

State Center, Iowa 



MEMBERS 

Alexander, E. A Clarion, Iowa 

Allen, M. C Nevada, Iowa 

Allen, A. F Ames, Iowa 

Allen, A. F Sioux City, Iowa 

Arey, M. F Cedar Falls, Iowa 

Bates, CO Cedar Rapids, Iowa 

Becker, F Clermont, Iowa 

Bennett, Fred A Sioux City, Iowa 

Black, G. D Independence, Iowa 

Bliss, G. R Davenport, Iowa 

Buchanan, Mrs. R. E Ames, Iowa 

Carter, Charles F Fairfield, Iowa 

Clark, John H Chariton, Iowa 

Clarke, Charles F Adel, Iowa 

Clarke, G. W Adel, Iowa 

Conard, H. S Grinnell, Iowa 

Crossley, Varick C Webster City, Iowa 

Culley, Frank Ames, Iowa 

Erwin, A. T Ames, Iowa 

Ewers, A. F St. Louis, Missouri 

Fields, E. A Sioux City, Iowa 

Fitch, C. L Ames, Iowa 

Fitchpatrick, J. A Nevada, Iowa 

Flickinger, R. E Odebolt, Iowa 

Frink, S. G Tipton, Iowa 

Gow, James Ellis Cedar Rapids, Iowa 

Greeley, W. M Ames, Iowa 

Harding, W. L Sioux City, Iowa 

Harrington, F. Williamsburg, Iowa 

Hartman, John C Waterloo, Iowa 

Hauser, M. A Ames, Iowa 



XIV 



MEMBERS 



Hayden, Ada 
Haynes, L. J. . 
Hayward, W. J. 
Henderson, 0. J. 
Herriek, R. S. . 
Holbrook, P. K. 
Iowa State Library 
Johns, H. A. 
Judd, Allen 
Kaye, G. F. 
Kenoyer, L. A. . 
Lamoreux, H. H. 
Lau, Charles W. 
Lees, J. H. 
McCall, Ed. 
MacDonald, G. B. 
MacDonald, John 
McGhee, E. R. . 
McPherrin, J. M. 
Moninger, W. R. 
Morbeck, Geo. C. 
Morrison, Theodore N 
Mueller, H. A. . 
Nagelstad, 0. T. 
Orr, Ellison 
Palmer, E. L. . 
Payne & Sons . 
Pearson, R. A. . 
Pellett, Frank C. 
Peters, E. C. 
Reeves, Elmer . 
Ross, Ozron 
Shull, H. W. . 
Soper, C. M. 
Spurrell, John A. 
Stanton, E. W. . 
Stephens, E. F. . 



. Ames, Iowa 
Des Moines, Iowa 
. Sioux City, Iowa 
Webster City, Iowa 
. Ames, Iowa 
Onawa, Iowa 
Des Moines, Iowa 
. Sioux City, Iowa 
Des Moines, Iowa 
. Iowa City, Iowa 
Toledo, Iowa 
Meriden, Iowa 
. Davenport, Iowa 
Des Moines, Iowa 
Nevada, Iowa 
. Ames, Iowa 
. Sioux City, Iowa 
Farley, Iowa 
Des Moines, Iowa 
Marshalltown, Iowa, R. F. D. 3 
. Ames, Iowa 
Davenport, Iowa 
St. Charles, Iowa 
Sioux City, Iowa 
Waukon, Iowa 
Cedar Falls, Iowa 
Nevada, Iowa 
. Ames, Iowa 
Atlantic, Iowa 
Sioux City, Iowa 
Waverly, Iowa 
Webster City, Iowa 
Des Moines, Iowa 
Nevada, Iowa 
. Wall Lake, Iowa 
. Ames, Iowa 
Nampa, Idaho 



MEMBERS xv 

Stephens, F. C Sioux City, Iowa 

Summers, H. E Ames, Iowa 

Taff, Paul Ames, Iowa, 

Taylor, Rose Schuster Sioux City, Iowa 

Thompson, L. Mitchell, Iowa 

Truax, E. R Ames, Iowa 

Von Tungeln, G. H Ames, Iowa 

Watrous Nursery Company . . . Des Moines, Iowa 

Wilson, D. Des Moines, Iowa 

Wylie, R. B Iowa City, Iowa 



IMPORTANT EVENTS IN LIFE OF 
JOHN F. LACEY 

Compiled by Harriette S. Kellogg 

Born at New Martinsville, West Virginia (Vir- 
ginia) . 
Family moved to Wheeling, West Virginia 

(Virginia). 
Family moved to Oskaloosa, Iowa. 
Attended Drake's Academy. 
Family moved to farm near Oskaloosa. 
Worked on farm in summer, at school in Os- 
kaloosa in winter. 
Taught school during winter months and at- 
tended school in town during the intervals. 
At school in town. 
Enlisted as private in Company H, Third 

Iowa Infantry. 
Left home for camp. 
Mustered in at Keokuk. 

Taken prisoner at Battle of Blue Mills, Mis- 
souri. 
Nov. Paroled; returned to Oskaloosa; began study 

of law. 
Nov. 7 Discharged under order of President. 

1861-1862 Read law during winter. 

1862 Feb. 11 Death of brother James. 
1862 Spring Order for exchange of prisoners. 

Aug. 9 Reenlisted in Company D, Thirty-third In- 

fantry. 
Aug. 23 Commissioned Sergeant-Major under Colonel 
Rice. 



1841 


May 30 


1853 




1855 




1855 




1856 




1857 




1858-1859 


1860 




1861 




1861 


May 30 


1861 


June 8 


1861 


Sept. 17 



xviii LIFE OF JOHN F. LACEY 

1862 Oct. 1 Mustered in at Camp Tuttle, Oskaloosa, Iowa. 

1863 Apr. 16 First Lieutenant Company C, Thirty-third In- 

fantry. 
May Acting Adjutant-General of Division under 

Colonel Rice. 

Battle of Helena, Arkansas. 

Commended in letter by Colonel Rice. 

Assistant Adjutant-General of U. S. Volun- 
teers. 

Battle at Terre Noir Creek, Arkansas. 

Battle at Elkins' Creek, Arkansas. 

Battle at Prairie d Anne, Arkansas. 

Battle at Poison Springs, Arkansas. 

Battle at Jenkins' Ferry, Arkansas. 

On staff of General Steele. 

Siege of Spanish Fort. 

Siege of Fort Blakeley. 

Entered Mobile. 

Mustered out with rank of Brevet-Major. 

Order for discharge from army. 

Admitted to bar in Iowa. 

Opened law office in Oskaloosa, Iowa. 

Married Miss Martha Newell. 

Formed partnership with W. E. Shepherd. 

Birth of daughter, Eleanor. 

Elected to State Legislature of Iowa. 

Published Third Iowa Digest. 

Crossed Plains by stage. 

Published Vol. I, Railway Digest. 

Birth of son, Raymond Fletcher. 

Partnership with W. E. Shepherd dissolved. 
Mr. Shepherd moves to California. 

Birth of daughter, Marion Lurena Kate 
(Dumpsie). 

Birth of daughter, Berenice. 

Traveled abroad with Mrs. Lacey. 

Death of son, Raymond Fletcher. 





July 4 




July 7 


1864 


Apr. 2 




Apr. 4 




Apr. 10 




Apr. 15 




Apr. 30 


1865 


Apr. 8 




Apr. 9 




Apr. 10 




July 17 




Sept. 16 




Sept. 18 




Sept. 19 


1866 


Jan. 1 


1866 


June 25 


1869 




1870 




1871 




1872 




1873 


Jan. 1 


1874 


Oct. 16 


1876 


Sept. 10 


1878 




1880 


Oct. 9 



1880 


Nov. 2 


1884 




1884 




1888 




1889 


March 


1892 




1894 




1895 


May 7 


1896 




1897 




1898 




1898-1899 


1900 


May 25 


1900 




1900 


Dec. 25 


1902 




1904 




1906 


June 


1907 




1907 




1913 


July 


1913 


Sept. 29 



LIFE OF JOHN F. LACEY xix 

Death of daughter, Marion. 

Second journey abroad with Mrs. Lacey. 

Published Vol. II, Railway Digest. 

Congressional campaign against General 
Weaver. 

Member of Fifty-first Congress. 

Elected to Fifty-third Congress. 

Elected to Fifty-fourth Congress. 

Traveled through Mexico with daughters, 
Eleanor and Berenice. 

Elected to Fifty-fifth Congress. 

Honorary degree, A.M., conferred by Perm 
College. 

Elected to Fifty-sixth Congress. 

Traveled in Cuba and Porto Rico with daugh- 
ter, Berenice. 

Passage of ' ' Lacey Act. ' ' 

Elected to Fifty-seventh Congress. 

Presented with watch by L. A. S. 

Elected to Fifty-eighth Congress. 

Elected to Fifty-ninth Congress. 

Passage of Federal Bird Refuge Law. 

Resumed practice of law at Oskaloosa, Iowa. 

Trip to Alaska, down the Yukon, and to Nome. 

Elected President of State Bar Association. 

Died at Oskaloosa. 



BIOGRAPHICAL 



IN MEMORY OF MAJOR LACEY J 

Mr. President and Members of the Bar Association: 

A year ago I was unable to be present at the meeting 
of the State Bar Association, by reason of professional 
engagements in which Major Lacey and myself were 
mutually interested. After the adjournment of the Bar 
Association at Sioux City, by arrangement I met Major 
Lacey in Chicago. We went east on a business trip, and 
I am sure that the members of the association who were 
present and conferred upon Major Lacey the honor of 
the presidency of the association, would have been pleased 
to know with what high sense of appreciation Major 
Lacey received the honor. He stated to me that he did 
not believe that any political honor that had come to him 
had touched his sense of appreciation as much as his 
election as president of this association. 

It was my good fortune to become acquainted with 
Major Lacey when I was a young lawyer. Leaving law 
school I went to Oskaloosa and I sat down and waited 
for clients. During the years that elapsed prior to Ma- 
jor Lacey 's death I was closely associated with him, and 
during all of those years I learned to respect and honor 
him for his inherent worth. 

As a young lawyer I frequently called upon Major 
Lacey to assist me in the trial of cases, and there can be 
no better test of the courtesy and dignity of a lawyer than 
the older lawyer who is called by his young and inexpe- 
rienced associate, and in all these relations I found Major 

i Address delivered by Hon. James A. Devitt, of Oskaloosa, before the 
State Bar Association at Cedar Eapids, June 25, 1914. 



4 MAJOR JOHN F. LACEY 

Lacey was, as you have all known him to be, a perfect 
type of the cultured lawyer. 

Major Lacey 's career is remarkable in many respects. 
Born in what is now West Virginia, coming as a boy to 
Iowa at about fourteen years of age, and raised on a farm 
in Mahaska County, he learned the trade of a bricklayer, 
and to the day of his death he pointed with pride to build- 
ings in our city in the construction of which he had per- 
formed the arduous labor of carrying the hod and laying 
bricks. 

He early determined to become a lawyer, and in the 
time when his work as a bricklayer would permit, he read 
law in the office of Attorney General Rice. 

On the breaking out of the Civil War, Major Lacey en- 
listed as a private, his name being the fourth in the list of 
names from Mahaska County when the first call came for 
volunteers. He was captured during one of the early 
battles and sent home as a prisoner of war, but as soon as 
an exchange was made he reenlisted in the Thirty-third 
Iowa. His record as a soldier was one of credit. I need 
only say that he was promoted as a captain and was mus- 
tered out of service as a major. As a young soldier 
Major Lacey exhibited those traits of character which 
endeared him to his friends later, and which is well stated 
and set forth in a brief statement contained in a letter 
from General Steele. At about the time of the close of 
the Civil War, when the French invasion of Mexico was 
being resented by our government, an expedition under 
General Phil Sheridan was organized for the purpose of 
moving the army to the Mexican frontier. At the time 
of the organization of this expedition, Major Lacey was 
serving on the staff of General Steele. He was detailed 
to accompany this expedition. 

Immediately after the close of the war he returned to 
Oskaloosa and took up his study of the law ; studies which 



BIOGRAPHICAL 5 

had not been entirely interrupted by his army service, 
as he was in the habit of carrying in his saddle-bag law 
books from which he read when opportunity presented 
itself. 

He was admitted to the bar, members of which were 
at the time, Judge W. H. Seevers, later judge of the Su- 
preme Court of the state, M. E. Cutts, and Judge Lough- 
ridge, whose names were at the time in the forefront of 
the bar of Iowa. Trained to compete with these men, 
Major Lacey received that training which is most desira- 
ble for a young lawyer, having an opportunity of seeing 
the best and ablest men of his profession in the trial of 
cases. That he was an apt student is shown from the 
success that he attained in the bar where these men were 
his competitors. 

Major Lacey 's political career was long and distin- 
guished. But the fact is not generally known that his po- 
litical career arose from his success as a lawyer. In 
the campaign of 1888, when the Republicans of the Sixth 
Congressional District were looking around for some man 
who could successfully compete on the stump with Gen- 
eral James B. Weaver, then in the height of his power as 
a speaker, the members of the bar received attention, and 
Major Lacey was drafted from the legal profession into 
the political arena for the purpose of making a contest 
which the Republicans felt was desperate indeed. The 
history of these contests is a part of the political history 
of the state. He brought to his political contests the 
same energy and zeal he exhibited in his law practice. 

I remember attending a meeting of the state committee 
where those interested in the management of the cam- 
paign were arranging their plans. All of the party can- 
didates for Congress were present, and, as the various 
dates were arranged, frequently the other candidates of- 
fered this or that excuse for not being able to comply 



6 MAJOR JOHN F. LACEY 

with the wishes of the committee, but every time an as- 
signment was proposed for Major Lacey, he promptly 
answered, "Yes, I am ready to go." This readiness of 
the Major to perform whatever political duty was as- 
signed him by the committee was favorably commented 
upon by men in charge of the campaign, and the Major 
made the following characteristic explanation of his read- 
iness for political duty: "When I was practicing law, I 
never allowed anything to interfere with my practice, and 
now that I am in politics, I never allow anything to in- 
terfere with my politics." 

Such was the system Major Lacey had in politics and 
in law. He had developed those traits of readiness and 
resourcefulness that stood him in good stead in politics. 

The history of these controversies with General Weav- 
er is full of stories of his ability to take care of himself 
under any and all circumstances with a man who was then 
perhaps without a peer in Iowa in the rough and tussle 
of those days. 

During one of the early debates, before General Weav- 
er had felt Major Lacey out, he got him up before the 
audience and referred to his opponent as the "dapper 
little corporation attorney." When Major Lacey 's turn 
came to reply, he referred to the ' ' dapper little corpora- 
tion attorney," and, drawing from his pocket the postal 
card received by attorneys when cases have been deter- 
mined in the Supreme Court, Major Lacey read to the 
audience the statement, ' ' That the case of Way vs. Chi- 
cago, Rock Island & Pacific Railroad Company had been 
affirmed," calling the attention of the audience to the 
fact that he had been attorney for the plaintiff in a five 
year battle through the courts in a case that had attract- 
ed the attention of the entire district. The crowd joined 
in the laugh at General Weaver's expense, and no more 



BIOGRAPHICAL 7 

reference was made during their debates to the "dapper 
little corporation attorney." 

But, after all, Major Lacey was preeminently a lawyer. 
His career in Congress was one that reflected credit upon 
him. He secured and retained the confidence of Presi- 
dents Harrison, McKinley, Roosevelt, and Taft, the men 
who were Presidents during the time he held office. 

His great work was on the public lands committee 
and in the land and forest conservation — not conserva- 
tion for political purposes, because at that time conser- 
vation had not been urged as a political asset — but he 
was a conservator of land of the nation when he stood 
alone; he was a conservator of the natural resources of 
the United States. He drafted and prepared the law 
which set aside Yellowstone Park, and drafted the rules 
for its government. He was peculiarly interested in the 
preservation of all the great natural curiosities of the 
country. He secured the legislation that made the petri- 
fied forests of Arizona a national park. He was the 
pioneer in the American Congress of the legislation for 
the protection of bird life, and the Lacey bird law, which 
was enacted into a law principally by his efforts, was the 
forerunner of other national legislation for the protec- 
tion of the wild birds of America from extermination. 
At the time of his death, Major Lacey, by the appoint- 
ment of Secretary of Agriculture Houston, was one of 
the committee drafting the rules and regulations under 
which migratory birds might be shot under the act of the 
last Congress passed to protect the migratory birds. In 
all these things, as President Roosevelt said, he worked 
as a man, who, with no thought of his own advancement, 
engaged in doing what ought to be done for the general 
public, looking alone to the good results of his work for 
his reward rather than personal advancement. 



8 MAJOR JOHN F. LACEY 

Major Lacey's career in Congress terminated, and, 
although at the time of his retirement the President of 
the United States and numerous of his friends associated 
with him and who held him in the highest esteem, were 
anxious and willing to do something in the way of ap- 
pointing him to political office, he promptly announced 
that he was going to retire, leave Washington, and go 
back to Oskaloosa to practice law. I remember with what 
great pleasure he told me that, shortly after this an- 
nouncement appeared in the public press, at a reception 
at the White House at which he was present, Justice 
White, then one of the justices of the Supreme Court, and 
now its honored Chief Justice, seeing Major Lacey in the 
crowd, made his way to him, with the greeting: ''Major, 
I want to shake the hand of a lawyer; I want to shake 
hands with a man who has not been divorced from his 
profession by the fact that he has served a number of 
years in Congress." 

The one characteristic of Major Lacey as a lawyer 
that stood out more prominently than any other, was his 
untiring industry. Whatever Major Lacey attained of 
success, either in law or politics, came to him, not as a 
result of genius, except it be the genius of hard work. 
No other man with whom I have ever been acquainted 
possessed his capacity for constant and continuous toil. 
The Major, as we boys used to say, loved work like the 
rest of us loved to laugh. A few days ago Judge Mc- 
Pherson was telling me of an experience of his with 
Major Lacey. He and the Major had been retained in a 
case. Judge McPherson stated that he had devoted con- 
siderable time and study to the case when he went to 
Oskaloosa. They both worked at the case, getting ready 
for trial, until supper time, when Judge McPherson said 
he was going to his brother-in-law's for supper and that 
he would meet the Major in the morning. "No," said 



BIOGRAPHICAL 9 

the Major, "we had better come back this evening." 
They went back and worked until eleven o'clock. The 
Major said he could meet him at the office in the morning 
at seven o'clock, as the court opened at nine. 

That capacity for work Major Lacey also carried into 
his recreation. His recreation consisted in his love for 
literature and love of travel. Although not a college 
graduate, Major Lacey, in the best sense of the word, was 
a learned man. He turned for rest from his law work to 
the literature of this and preceding ages, and he became 
a scholar in the truest sense of the word. His vacations 
were generally occupied in travel and, while he had visit- 
ed Europe, he knew the United States as few men have 
known it. He had visited every state and territory in the 
American Union, as well as Alaska and its foreign pos- 
sessions. He acquainted himself by personal investiga- 
tion with substantially every one of the national parks 
and Indian reservations, and this habit of travel resulted 
in his early and constant interest in the preservation, for 
the use of coming generations, of those natural wonders 
in which our country abounds, and, as a result of these 
travels, he fathered and, with tireless energy, secured the 
enactment of laws which have preserved for all time many 
of these natural wonders, including not only Yellowstone 
Park, but the petrified forests of Arizona, Crater Lake 
in Oregon, and Yosemite Park in California. 

In the community in which Major Lacey lived he was 
a part of its life. There was no movement in the com- 
munity of which he was not one of its leaders. It was 
not the case of a man being too big for a small town ; he 
was one of us and with us in every good work. He was 
one of the most willing men to give up his time or money 
for any public purpose. If it was possible for him to 
grant requests for addresses in schools, colleges, high 
schools, and on Grand Army and old settlers' occasions, 



10 MAJOR JOHN F. LACEY 

they were always given, and he devoted himself to the 
preparation of these addresses with zeal and energy, 
looked upon the invitation as a compliment, and he re- 
turned the compliment by preparing something for the 
occasion that he felt was fitting. 

It was indeed fortunate in many respects for Major 
Lacey, living as he did, to a ripe age, that he went down 
into the shadow of death in the full possession of his 
mental and physical vigor. On the Thursday before his 
death on Monday, I was with him before the Supreme 
Court of the state, presenting some cases on oral argu- 
ment, and he, in the presentation of those cases, seemed 
to possess the same energy, zeal, and resourcefulness that 
he had when I first knew him. Within an hour of the 
time of his death he was at my office, taking up matters 
of importance and apparently in the full enjoyment of 
perfect physical health. He said, laughingly, he never 
drew a pension as a soldier until the law was passed 
giving the soldiers a pension on account of old age. He 
laughed when he stated that he owed Uncle Sam some 
money, because he came out of the army physically much 
stronger than when he went into it. 

Possessing this capacity for labor, Major Lacey, down 
to the minute of his death, was actively and energetically 
engaged in the practice of his profession, and the hour 
before his death he was talking business in his office and 
going from place to place in the town with no more ex- 
pectation that his end was near than any of us have today. 

He walked home and was instantly stricken with death. 
To those of us who had known him, Major Lacey will ever 
be remembered as the type of man a lawyer should be. 
His influence on the bar of the district has been an uplift- 
ing influence. His death will not remove that influence 
among the profession. 

I deem it entirely proper, in closing this brief address, 



BIOGRAPHICAL 11 

to read a poem written by Mr. S. II. M. Byers, who was a 
boyhood friend and schoolmate of Major Lacey in our 
county, and who went into the army with him and who 
knew him as intimately as it was possible to know anoth- 
er. 2 



2 The poem referred to has been given in another connection. — Ed. 



JOHN F. LACEY x 

BY WILLIAM T. HORNADAY 

It was the free, wild birds of the Iowa prairies that 
once inspired a strong man to champion their cause in the 
council chambers of our nation. To know our birds of 
song is to love all birds. Fortunate indeed were the birds 
who sang to John F. Lacey, during his boyhood and his 
young manhood. It was the meadow lark, the white- 
throated sparrow, the brown thrasher, the catbird, and 
the whippoorwill that filled his great heart with love for 
all birds, and nerved his strong right arm to strike in 
their defense. 

Out of all the achievements of Major Lacey for the bet- 
ter preservation of our bird allies, one fact looms up 
prominently, and dwarfs all others. He was the first 
American congressman to become an avowed champion of 
wild life. It is true that even before he entered the lists 
as the persistent, uncompromising, and permanent de- 
fender of wild creatures in need of defense, other mem- 
bers of Congress had manifested the spirit which later on 
developed the pronounced game protectionists. But 
Major Lacey, we repeat, was the first man in the Congress 
of the United States to take up the new white man 's bur- 
den, and make it peculiarly his own. 

The date of this new departure may be given approx- 
imately as 1900. At that time, few large men in public 

i This biographical sketch was prepared for the Annals of Iowa, and is 
published here, by permission of Mr. Edgar R. Harlan and Dr. Hornaday. 
It is a splendid appreciation of Major Lacey 's work on the conservation of 
wild life. 



BIOGRAPHICAL 13 

life took the woes of wild life seriously. Slaughter was 
the order of the day. The sportsmen who advocated 
game protection, and secured the enactment of protective 
laws, were animated by a desire, not to stop killing, but to 
preserve today in order to kill more abundantly tomor- 
row. It is well within the bounds of truth to state that 
even down to 1890, wild life preservation in America was 
little more than a pleasing dream, a shadow without sub- 
stance. Excepting the Yellowstone Park, there were not 
then in existence any large game preserves in which kill- 
ing was totally prohibited. Everywhere, without a single 
exception, wild game was being killed far faster than it 
was breeding. 

At the date mentioned, the killing of game was every- 
where a ruling passion. The protection of our song- 
birds had only just begun. Every member of Congress 
was regarded by his constituents as a chore-boy, of whom 
all kinds of personal service might confidently be demand- 
ed. The number of pension-claim burdens that were laid 
upon congressmen was very great ; and the measures of 
the nation often waited upon the personal tasks of the 
constituent. 

Acting under what may well be called an inspiration, 
and in spite of other burdens and other causes, Mr. Lacey 
deliberately elected to champion the cause of the vanish- 
ing birds. We know not just when that call to arms first 
was heard by him. It is in the silent watches of the night, 
the still small hours of the new day, when the minds of 
men are most free from surrounding influences, that our 
mental vision becomes keenest, and we most accurately 
measure the things that Were against the things that 
Are. It is in the early morning watch, when sleep has 
swept all cobwebs from the brain, that man's mental neg- 
atives are most sensitive to great impressions. It is then 
that the voice of Duty is heard in clear, bell-like tones, 



14 MAJOR JOHN F. LACEY 

calling upon us to arise, put on our armor, and sally forth. 

I doubt not that the call to John F. Lacey, to arise and 
stand forth as the champion of the birds, came to him at 
a time that he himself never set down, and could not name. 

But come it did ; and the while other men were laboring 
for commercial and industrial causes, and striving to pass 
bills that would appeal strongly to their own constituents, 
there was one man who constituted himself a Committee 
of One on Everybody's Business. It was, and ever has 
been, everybody's business to save our valuable wild life 
from slaughter and annihilation ; but alas ! how often it is 
treated as nobody's business! 

I repeat that Major Lacey was the first member of Con- 
gress who made the cause of the wild birds and beasts 
particularly his own. At first he was treated by some of 
his colleagues with good natured raillery, and taken every 
way but seriously. But, like the good soldier that he was, 
in more causes than one, he enlisted in the birds' cause, 
not for three months' service, nor one year, nor three 
years, but during the period of the war. From that mo- 
ment down to his last day in Congress, he was never else- 
where than on the firing line. 

His victories for the wild life cause were numerous and 
important ; but his first one was the greatest of all. The 
Lacey bird law is enough to render any name illustrious. 
That act, to prevent all interstate traffic in game illegally 
killed or shipped, was the first federal act for the better 
protection of birds ; and it placed in the hands of the na- 
tional government a weapon more powerful and far- 
reaching than any cannon ever cast. It has prevented the 
illegal slaughter, and sale in the markets, of uncountable 
millions of game birds ; and the rogues that it has brought 
to justice would, if herded together, make a great army. 

The long history of Mr. Lacey 's labors and achieve- 
ments in Congress in behalf of wild life will be written 



BIOGRAPHICAL 15 

elsewhere, in detail. His effective efforts in the founding 
of national bison herds, with which we are most familiar, 
were only the latest of his achievements in the field of pro- 
tection. The enabling act, and the appropriation of $15,- 
000 by which the first national bison herd was established, 
in the Yellowstone National Park, was secured through 
the persistence of Representative Lacey against much op- 
position. I am inclined to believe that his last work in 
Congress in his favorite cause was bestowed in securing 
the legislation by which the national government joined 
the New York Zoological Society in the mutual action 
which created in Oklahoma the Wichita National Bison 
Range and Herd, now a pronounced success. 

The proud state of Iowa may well regard John F. 
Lacey as one of her most illustrious men. His work has 
added lustre to the state made famous by Allison, Harlan, 
and Kirkwood, and throughout this nation, wherever wild 
birds are protected, his name is known and honored. To 
him the people of Iowa, and the bird-lovers of America, 
owe a monument as lofty as his own purposes, and as im- 
perishable as his fame. 



A TRIBUTE TO MAJOR LACEY FROM A FELLOW 
BIRD LOVER 

BY COL. G. 0. SHIELDS 

I have never known so busy a man as Major Lacey, who 
yet gave so much and such careful thought to the proper 
entertaining of his friends. A man of entire leisure and 
with ample means could not be more studiously attentive 
to his friends than was this great man. No matter how 
deeply he might have been buried in work, or how many 
people might have been calling on him, yet he treated 
each one as if he were the only caller, and as if he had 
hours of leisure on his hands. 

In greeting an old friend he would frequently extend 
both hands, and when they started to walk away to some 
other room, or even on the street, I have frequently seen 
the Major put his arm around his friend and treat him 
as if he were his own son or his own brother. No matter 
how much work the venerable statesman might have on 
hand he would invariably devote to his caller all the time 
necessary to go over the matter in hand, and would send 
him away feeling that he had been communing with a big- 
hearted, broad-minded, whole-souled friend. 

No American ever did a greater service for his country 
than did Major Lacey during his eighteen years in Con- 
gress. He drafted and secured the passage of many 
bills for the preservation of forests and other natural re- 
sources. His greatest work, however, was in preparing, 
introducing, and finally securing the passage of a bill to 
prevent interstate commerce in birds and animals killed 
or taken in violation of state laws. 



BIOGRAPHICAL 17 

He fought for this bill through six of the busiest years 
of his life, and it finally passed both houses of Congress 
in April, and was approved May 1, 1900, by President 
McKinley. 

That act has saved the lives of more birds than any 
other law ever enacted in this or any other country. 

Here are some extracts from a speech delivered in the 
House of Representatives, by Major Lacey, in support of 
his bird bill, and which indicate the fondness of this great 
man for birds : 

I have always been a lover of birds; and have always been a 
hunter as well ; for today there is no friend that the birds have 
like the true sportsman — the man who enjoys legitimate sport. 
He protects them out of season ; he kills them in moderation in 
season. The game hog is an animal on two legs that is disap- 
pearing. May he soon be extinct ! The game hog formerly had 
himself photographed surrounded by the fruits of a day's 
"sport," and regarded the photograph as imperfect unless he 
had at least 100 dead ducks, grouse, or geese around him. To- 
day a true sportsman would be ashamed to be pictured in con- 
nection with a larger number of birds than a decent share for 
an American gunner, having due regard to the preservation of 
game for future. . . 

We have given an awful exhibition of slaughter and destruc- 
tion which may serve as a warning to all mankind. Let us now 
give an example of wise conservation of what remains of the 
gifts of nature. 

It is late. It is too late a* to the wild pigeon. The buffalo 
is almost a thing of the past, but there still remains much to 
preserve, and we must act earnestly if we would accomplish 
good results. I love the people who love birds. The man or 
the woman who does not love birds should be classed with the 
person who has no love for music — fit only for treason, strata- 
gems, and spoils. I would love to have a solo singer in every 
bush and a choir of birds in every tree top. 

The people of Iowa never made a greater mistake in 
their lives than when they allowed Major Lacey to retire 



18 MAJOR JOHN F. LACEY 

from public life. His loss was a loss not to the people of 
Iowa alone, but to the people of the entire nation, and no 
man has since appeared in Congress to take up the great 
work of the conservation of wild life in so able, so per- 
sistent, and so effective a manner as Major Lacey did 
that work. 

Major Lacey enjoyed the confidence and respect of his 
associates in Congress, to an unusual degree. They all 
considered him an absolute authority on everything per- 
taining to nature and the great outdoors. 

He was also recognized as an authority on constitu- 
tional law. In fact a member of the House of Repre- 
sentatives told me that Lacey was generally regarded as 
the greatest constitutional lawyer in that body. 



JOHN F. LACEY l 

BY HON. EDWARD H. STILES 2 

Major John F. Lacey, from humble beginnings became 
one of the most distinguished lawyers and constructive 
statesmen that Iowa has produced. His strength lay in 
his constant persistency and tireless industry, backed by 
strong resolution, sound judgment, and an eminently 
practical mind. He was born in New Martinsville, West 
Virginia, in 1841. He was educated in the schools of his 
native place and in those of Oskaloosa, Iowa, his parents 
removing to the latter place in 1855, when John was four- 
teen years of age. Though not a collegian, he became a 
man of learning. His eager spirit, his thirst for knowl- 
edge, and his quite wide reading, made him one of the 
most accomplished men in the state. In his profession 
he was the most persevering and industrious of lawyers. 
In that respect I do not think he had his equal in the 
state ; the nearest approach to him, so far as my observa- 
tion goes, was William McNett, of Ottumwa. Major 
Lacey was not rugged in appearance, and to look at him 
the unacquainted observer would not think him capable 
of enduring long and trying strains of professional labor. 
But such a judgment would be erroneous in the highest 
degree, for in that respect I have never seen his superior. 

i From Recollections and Sketches of Notable Lawyers and Public Men 
of Early Ioica; with annecdotes and incidents illustrative of the times. 
1835-1880. 

2 Mr. Stiles was for many years a member of the Iowa bar, member of 
House of Representatives 1863-1864, member of the Senate 1865-1866, 1867- 
1875, reporter of the Supreme Court, author of digest of its decisions from 
the earliest territorial period to the 56th Iowa Reports. Now resides in 
South Pasadena, California. 



20 MAJOR JOHN F. LACEY 

For many years he had a wide practice and was engaged 
in many cases of the greatest importance. He worked 
unceasingly while carrying on a large practice and en- 
gaged in intellectual exertions that would have exhausted 
most men. But he never flagged; and in the midst of his 
ardent professional labors he prepared a general digest 
of the railway decisions that had been made in the United 
States, which appeared in two volumes, under the title 
of Lacey's Railway Digest, which came into general use 
and made him known throughout the country. The first 
edition of his work was published in 1875. Before that 
he had prepared and published in one volume, a Digest 
of the decisions of the Supreme Court of Iowa, supple- 
menting the prior digests, each in one volume, of Judge 
John F. Dillon and Professor William C. Hammond. I 
may remark as a matter of legal history, that these were 
supplemented by the digests prepared by the writer, in 
four volumes, containing the decisions of the Supreme 
Court from the earliest territorial period to the 57th Iowa 
Report ; which in after years was in its turn superseded 
by the Digest of Judge Emlin McClain. 

What has been said will, without entering into details, 
illustrate not only his extraordinary ability and deep 
learning as a lawyer, but also his working powers and 
great endurance. To exemplify the latter qualities I may, 
however, refer to the case of the State against Pleasant 
Anderson for the murder of Chris McAllister, referred 
to in my sketch of Daniel Anderson, and which attracted 
wide public attention. I was employed to assist the 
district attorney, John Donnell, of Sigourney, in the pros- 
ecution; Major Lacey, with Judge H. B. Hendershott and 
Daniel Anderson, appeared for the defense. The case 
was tried at Oskaloosa, on change of venue from Wap- 
ello county, and Major Lacey was active in conducting 
the defense. The trial lasted two weeks with both day 



BIOGRAPHICAL 21 

and night sessions, and at its close each and all the law- 
yers engaged showed evident signs of exhaustion, except 
Major Lacey. He seemed to me as fresh and vigorous as 
at the beginning. 

He had been a youthful soldier and officer in the great 
Civil War, and he has unconsciously disclosed much of 
his own heroic career in the sketches he has drawn of 
General Samuel A. Rice and Major-General Frederick 
Steele. 3 While in those sketches he modestly refrains 
from saying scarcely anything of himself, the halo he has 
shed upon the career of his subjects reflects itself upon 
his own, for he was an active participant in the scenes he 
describes. 

To the Oskaloosa Daily Herald of October 4, 1913, 1 am 
indebted for many of the details of his military services. 
On the outbreak of the Civil War, when not fully out of 
his teens, he was among the first to respond to the Pres- 
ident's call for volunteers, and was the fifth person to get 
his name down upon the enlistment muster roll. He left 
Oskaloosa on his twentieth birthday, May 30, 1861, to en- 
ter the service as a private in Company H of the Third 
regiment of Iowa Infantry. This regiment was sworn 
into service at Keokuk, Iowa, in June, 1861. The details 
of its service will be found in Stuart's Iowa Colonels and 
Regiments, page 83. Its early service was in north Mis- 
souri and its first severe battle was that of Blue Mills 
Landing, on the Missouri River, not far below Kansas 
City, and nearly opposite the town of Liberty. The com- 
mand was under the gallant Lieutenant-Colonel John 
Scott. The engagement was a severe one, and Lacey 
among others was taken prisoner, and carried to Lexing- 
ton, Mo. He was later paroled, and discharged as a pa- 
roled prisoner, in November, 1861. He was fully released 
by subsequent exchange of prisoners. 

3 Annals of Iowa, vol. iii, third series, 424. 



22 MAJOR JOHN F. LACEY 

He had commenced studying law before he entered the 
service, and upon his return to Oskaloosa resumed his 
legal studies, under the already civilly distinguished 
Samuel A. Rice. In August, 1862, Rice himself entered 
the service and was commissioned colonel of the Thirty- 
third regiment of Iowa Infantry, and young Lacey again 
laid down his law books to enlist as a private under the 
command of his preceptor, in Company D of that regi- 
ment. He was soon made sergeant-major of the regi- 
ment, and in May, 1863, was promoted and commissioned 
first lieutenant of Company C, and later served as acting 
adjutant of the regiment. Upon the promotion of Colonel 
Rice to the position of brigadier-general, Adjutant Lacey 
was promoted to a position on his staff, and continued as 
such officer until the death of General Rice, resulting from 
the mortal wound he received at the battle of Jenkin's 
Ferry. When the general received that wound Major 
Lacey was by Ins side and helped to carry him from that 
bloody field. He was then appointed on the staff of Gen- 
eral Frederick Steele as adjutant-general and served in 
that capacity until after the fall of Richmond. During 
this service he was brevetted major for gallantry on the 
field of battle at the siege of Mobile, Alabama. This 
special promotion was made at the personal request of 
Major-General Canby. Shortly after the fall of Rich- 
mond, General Grant, anticipating some trouble with 
Mexico by reason of circumstances not necessary here to 
relate, sent an army of about 40,000 men under General 
Steele to make observations on the Rio Grande. Major 
Lacey accompanied this expedition as assistant adjutant- 
general. The headquarters of the Army of the Rio 
Grande was Brownsville, Texas. From there Major 
Lacey was transferred to the staff of General Phil Sheri- 
dan, commanding the Division of the Southwest, at New 
Orleans. In releasing Major Lacey from his staff, Gen- 



BIOGRAPHICAL 23 

eral Steele addressed the following communication to 
General Sheridan : 

The undersigned deeply regrets losing from his staff so gal- 
lant and meritorious an officer, and from his military family, so 
amiable and accomplished a gentleman as Major Lacey. He en- 
tered the service at the age when most young men have not left 
school, and by his energy and good sense soon became distin- 
guished as a staff officer. 

He served for four years and until the end of the war 
with conspicuous gallantry, and participated, among oth- 
ers, in the following engagements : Battle of Helena, the 
Yazoo Pass expedition, the campaigns against Little Rock 
and Camden, the battles of Terrfenoir Creek, Elkin's 
Fort, Prairie d'Anne, Poison Springs, Jenkin's Ferry; 
and finally, in the last engagement of the war, the storm- 
ing of Fort Blakley, opposite Mobile, on April 9, 1865, 
the day of Lee 's surrender. 

Upon his return to Oskaloosa he reopened his law 
books, was admitted to the bar, and entered upon the 
practice at Oskaloosa in 1866. 

I turn now to briefly advert to his political career. He 
was a strong, but always conservative Republican. In 
1869 he was elected on that ticket to the lower house of 
the legislature, and became an influential leader in that 
body. He also served a term or two as city solicitor of 
the city of Oskaloosa. In 1888 he was elected to Con- 
gress from his district. This was the commencement 
of his long congressional career. He continued to be 
reelected until he had served for a period of sixteen years 
in the 51st, 53d, 54th, 55th, 56th, 57th, 58th, 59th con- 
gresses. But few, if any, members of that body accom- 
plished more for his state and the country at large, than 
did he. I shall not undertake to detail his services in 
that behalf. They will be found in the congressional 
record of that period, and in the different measures which 



24 MAJOR JOHN F. LACEY 

he originated or was instrumental in having passed. Of 
him President Roosevelt, in one of his speeches, said : 

In public life generally, we are not apt to find the man whose 
efforts go to the whole country. I wish to congratulate this 
district in having in Congress a man who spends his best efforts 
for the welfare of the whole United States. I can ask Mr. Lacey 
to come to me or I can go to him on a matter of consequence to 
the nation, with the absolute certainty that he will approach it 
simply from the standpoint of public service. I regard this as 
high praise for any man in public life. 

Again, in a personal letter to Major Lacey, President 
Roosevelt thus wrote: 

I desire to say to you how much it means to any man who be- 
lieves in hard, intelligent and disinterested public service to see 
such a career as yours has been in Congress. It has been my 
privilege to be closely associated with you and to watch the many 
different ways in which, without hopes or expectation of per- 
sonal reward, you have rendered efficient public service. 4 

Major Lacey was a lover of nature. He was fond of 
the fields, of the woods, and of all the natural beauties 
which the Almighty has spread about us. Above all, he 
loved the birds that gladden with their songs. He was 
the author and secured the passage of what is widely 
known as the "Lacey Bird Protection Act." Our forest 
reserve system is due to his efforts. He drew the bill 
under which the Yellowstone National Park is managed 
and governed. As was well said by the Oskaloosa Daily 
Herald : 

His judgment and foresight established a conservation policy 
for the government far in advance of its present advocates. His 
services in connection with the public lands committee have 
been of inestimable worth to the country and will be all en- 
during. 

And of him the Sac City Sun said : 

While on most matters political he lined up with what is 
* Oskaloosa (Iowa) Daily Herald, October 4, 1913. 



BIOGRAPHICAL 25 

known as the "old guard," an examination of his work will 
show that he was one of the original conservationists. He had 
a prominent part in securing legislation to protect the lives of 
coal miners in the territories. He was a forceful factor in 
establishing our system of forest reserves. It was also he who 
prepared the law for the government and protection of Yellow- 
stone park and of other noted national objects of interest. He 
was also the author of a measure for the protection of birds, 
adopted many years ago. Major Lacey will be remembered 
as one who has contributed worthily toward the welfare of his 
countrymen. 

Of him, Congressman S. F. Prouty said : 

Major Lacey was one of the brainiest men I ever saw. For 
twenty years we were thrown constantly together in our law 
practice, he at Oskaloosa and I at Pella. "We differed on pol- 
itics, but were warm personal friends. Major Lacey was one of 
the most influential men in Congress. He was an indefatigable 
worker. He was an authority on forest reserves and w T as active 
in the conservation fight. As chairman on the committee on 
forestry he framed most of the laws dealing with forests and wild 
animal preservation. 

As I have already indicated he was a Republican of the 
"uncompromising conservative order, and without doubt 
would have been indefinitely continued in Congress, and 
probably elected United States Senator, but for the split 
in or weakening of his party by what was known as the 
"Progressive movement," with which he had no patience. 
Through this he lost his seat in Congress, and was de- 
feated for the United States senatorship by Governor A. 
B. Cummins, after a close and somewhat embittered con- 
test. He was more than once called upon to be a candi- 
date for the office of governor, but steadily declined this 
honor. After the close of his political career he fully re- 
sumed the practice of his profession from which he never 
separated himself and which had been ably sustained by 
the help of his partner and brother, W. R. Lacey, under 
the firm name of Lacey & Lacey. In the height of his 



26 MAJOR JOHN F. LACEY 

professional and personal activities he was suddenly 
stricken with death, on September 29, 1913. He left his 
office a little after the noon hour, walked down the street 
in his accustomed sprightly manner, stopping on the way 
to converse with friends. Arriving at his residence he 
was met by a member of the family to whom he said, ' ' I 
am not feeling well. I believe I will lie down for a few 
moments. Please bring me a glass of water." The wa- 
ter was at hand almost instantly. He held the glass for 
a moment, then his hold relaxed, the glass fell to the 
floor, and Major Lacey dropped back on the couch, dead. 
It was a painless end, which one with such a background 
might well have wished. He needed no time for prepara- 
tion ; his noble life was a sufficient one. 

The death of no public man has caused more general 
grief in Iowa than did his. Political enemies and friends 
shared in it alike. At his funeral there was an immense 
gathering from all parts of the state. 

The universal sorrow that prevailed, and the esteem in 
which he was held, was voiced by the entire press of the 
state — Democratic as well as Republican. To confirm 
what I have said of him and to aid in giving a graphic 
picture of the man, I can do no better than give a few 
brief extracts from this source. 

Thus the Oskaloosa. Herald : 

Oskaloosa never had another citizen who had won such great 
distinction in so many fields of labor. In every walk of life and 
wherever he might be, he was always alive to the best of the situ- 
ation. He was observing, keen, and witty, ever the life of the 
group about him. His triumph in politics and his victories in 
court, never changed the character of the man. He was per- 
sistent and bitter in a fight, but never harbored a spirit of retri- 
bution. He never hesitated to express his opinions nor wavered 
from his fixed ideas of right, but he respected the beliefs and 
principles of others. As a citizen he was plain "John" to his 



BIOGRAPHICAL 27 

associates, and he lived the life of the true gentleman and 
friend. 

He was a Protestant and a member of the Episcopal 
Church, but Father Loftus, of St. Mary's Catholic Church 
of Oskaloosa, did not hesitate to pay him this tribute : 

John F. Lacey in his life and in his death has been visibly 
and signally dealt with of God. He blessed him with a high 
purpose, an ambition to live a noble life. God blessed him in 
his search for material out of which to construct the edifice of 
that life. . . The very suddenness of his death, coming with 
the sure swiftness and brilliancy of the lightning flash, rifted 
the clouds that obscured our view, pulled back the curtains and 
we beheld in all the refulgence of transfiguration, Lacey, as he 
was before his God, the perfect master piece of the highest and 
noblest in American life. 

Thus the Clinton Herald : 

With the sudden and unexpected death of John Fletcher 
Lacey there passed from the world of activities one of Iowa's 
grandest men. His death will bring universal sorrow and will 
be mourned as is the death of all good and great men. For half 
a century he has played an important part in the making of the 
history of this state. Few men have done more for it ; few men 
will be remembered with greater reverence. 

Iowa City Citizen : 

That Major Lacey was one of the ablest congressmen Iowa has 
sent to Washington is conceded. As a debater he had few equals. 
If he leaned to what seemed conservation in his later years it 
was not from any lack of courage or progressive ideas, but 
merely from the habit of considering good what he had helped 
to fashion and believed to be based on sound and enduring prin- 
ciples. 

Cedar Rapids Republican : 

Major Lacey is dead. He was a man of varied talents and 
many activities; a man of tender heart and strong mind. The 
men of the Civil War period knew him as a fine soldier, cour- 
ageous and devoted; the lawyers of Iowa knew him as an op- 



28 MAJOR JOHN F. LACEY 

ponent worthy of their best efforts, the politicians knew him as 
a man who always stood steadfast by his convictions, and who 
always fought with clean hands; and the people as a whole 
knew him as an honorable man, a patriotic citizen, and one of 
nature's noblemen. 

Council Bluffs Nonpareil : 

Major John F. Lacey was one of the grimmest political fight- 
ers in Iowa. He gloried in his standpatism. His political be- 
liefs were convictions of the most sincere character. Lacey de- 
fended these with the ardor of a crusader. He disliked a trim- 
mer and never did such things himself. He made political 
enemies and he retained political enmities. But Lacey was as 
honest as he was sincere. And he fought his political battles 
on the square and accepted results with soldierly courage. As a 
man and citizen he commanded the respect of both political 
supporters and opponents because both knew that he was 
prompted by the best of motives. In his death the state loses a 
splendid citizen and the old flag one of the most heroic defenders. 

The Vinton Eagle : 

Major Lacey was a thorough student. Probably he had no 
equal in his knowledge of public affairs. He participated in de- 
bates on all leading questions before Congress. 

Dubuque Times : 

Major Lacey was one of the old school of public men of which 
few are left. He was a stickler for principles and even those 
who disagreed with him politically admired his firmness and 
honesty of purpose. Political enemies he had by the score, but 
personal enemies none. He was never known to straddle an is- 
sue, and he stood firm and steadfast in defense of what he be- 
lieved right. 

Oskaloosa Times (Democratic) : 

Whatever of honor or distinction may have come to Major 
Lacey, the soldier, lawyer, and politician, was far overshadowed 
by the record of Major Lacey, the citizen. The writer had 
known the major for many years, and though we differed from 
him in politics, there never was an hour in all our acquaintance 



BIOGRAPHICAL 29 

that we did not recognize him as Oskaloosa's foremost citizen 
and most kind and generous neighbor. The kindly advice, the 
encouragement and counsel he has given to his friends at home, 
the countless deeds of kindness and of love to his neighbors will 
build for him a monument in the memory of his friends higher 
and more enduring than any marble shaft. 

Knoxville Journal (Democratic) : 

Major Lacey has a notable career as a lawyer, soldier, and 
statesman. For many years he was one of the men who had a 
real voice in the government of his country. His political con- 
victions were intense and he never faltered in them or swerved 
from the path they marked out for him. He was one of the most 
approachable of men, kindly and cordial. His soldier com- 
rades idolized him and no reunion of the old boys was ever com- 
plete without John F. Lacey. 

Fairfield Ledger : 

Major Lacey was a man of strength and vigor and he used 
both against the sham and pretense of the politics of these days, 
which he thoroughly hated. He went into public life clean- 
handed, and he came out clean-handed. 

Dave Brant, in the Iowa City Republican : 
In Congress Major Lacey was a natural leader. He was not a 
political legislator. He stood in Congress for something better 
than politics. He was constructive. He was called a stand- 
patter, but there was never a moment in his career when he did 
not stand for something new, something of benefit to the people. 
Few men are they but would have weakened when defeat was 
before them. But John F. Lacey was the exception. He re- 
tired from public life rather than surrender his principles. To- 
day when we have weathervane men in Congress from nearly 
every district in the state, with the same kind of men in most of 
our public places, it is refreshing to pay a tribute to one who 
never faltered. 

Major S. H. M. Byers writes : 

I have known him intimately since boyhood. We were boys 
together in the public schools — studied law at the same time, 



30 MAJOR JOHN F. LACEY 

and together entered the Union army. He was a true patriot, 
a good soldier, and quickly won promotion. His important 
career in Congress is known to everybody. Personally I re- 
garded him as the ablest member of the lower house. He 
scarcely had a superior as a debater anywhere. He had the 
power of repartee and no man in Congress was better acquaint- 
ed With men and books, and history, than he. He had a power- 
ful memory, and possessed books to read, and not for parlor or- 
nament only. As a youth at school he was proficient and am- 
bitious. Ambition never forsook him. He had a right to it, for 
he was able and prepared for any post. It is said that Presi- 
dent McKinley looked on him as one of the most potent men en- 
gaged in public affairs. As a lawyer he had few equals and he 
possessed a kindly wit that served him before juries as it did on 
the floor of Congress. Major Lacey will be remembered by 
many as an intense partisan in the political controversies that 
have divided the Republican party. He took his stand with de- 
cision, and he maintained it with earnestness. He belonged with 
the old guard, and never faltered. He never minced his words. 
But those who knew him best will remember him as a man of 
varied talents and many-sided activities. In the legislature 
every measure came in for a share of his attention. As a mem- 
ber of Congress it was his pride to cover a wider field than any 
member of either house. And he did with thoroughness every- 
thing he turned his hand to. He was always a hard-working 
lawyer. Those Who met him before the jury and the judges be- 
fore whom he practiced regarded him highly. He was fre- 
quently upon the platform, and his occasional addresses, all of 
them suggesting study and care in preparation, would fill a 
large volume. 

Judge J. L. Waite, in the Burlington Hawk-Eye : 
The announcement from Oskaloosa of the sudden death of 
Major John F. Lacey is a shock to the people of Iowa and to a 
wide circle of friends and acquaintances in other states. Major 
Lacey, in his prime, was in the front rank of useful and influ- 
ential legislators at Washington and was in demand in national 
campaigns as a platform speaker at republican rallies. The 
major's political addresses were always instructive and at the 



BIOGRAPHICAL 31 

same time interesting to voters. He discussed public questions 
with candor and fairness, but with an earnestness that com- 
manded respect for sincerity and positiveness of convictions. 

Lafayette Young, in the Des Moines Capital, has given 
a fine summary of Major Lacey's leading qualities, from 
which the following extracts are given: 

It was a wonderfully active, purposeful, and achieving life 
which closed at Oskaloosa yesterday. Indolence was entirely 
foreign to John F. Lacey's nature. In the three score and ten 
years which came to him those who knew the man will readily 
testify that he had no idle hours. Work was one of the dom- 
inating passions of his life and it was always notable the ease 
with which he could glide from a long tenure of office holding 
to the active practice of his profession. Some men go to "Wash- 
ington, serve a few terms in Congress, and return to find their 
law practice has passed into other hands. We believe this was 
less noticeable in the career of Major Lacey than that of any 
other Iowan identified with public life. He was so thorough in 
everything he undertook that he was constantly equipped and 
his services were always in demand. 

He early displayed the abilities which single out men for 
public service and he lived to a day when he was recognized as 
one of the most constructive statesmen at Washington. Ap- 
pointed to committees having in charge important affairs affect- 
ing the public domain he became an ardent student of the public 
lands question, Indian affairs, forestry, and conservation, and 
the most of our present laws pertaining to these issues bear the 
imprint of his painstaking work. He was a great lover of birds 
and the Audubon societies were highly appreciative of his sup- 
port of legislation for their protection. Major Lacey was a Re- 
publican of the old school. He knew just what he believed. 
He knew how his conclusions had been reached, and he could de- 
fend himself whenever the occasion required. He was never 
rattled in a congressional debate and he loved the antagonism 
of a law suit. He was ready to face the spirit of contest any- 
where. 

But now this gallant old soldier has fallen in the ranks. He 
had breathed the atmosphere of his law office and pressed the 



32 MAJOR JOHN F. LACEY 

leaves of his favorite law books on the very day that the sum- 
mons came. He dropped upon his couch at the noon-tide hour 
— as he probably thought for a brief rest. The voices of his 
faithful wife and children were the last earthly sounds which 
he heard. From that couch of rest Major Lacey had passed 
into the dreamless sleep. 

Ellsworth Roininger, in the Bloomfield Republican: 
The wit and humor he used in public speech to clinch a point 
in presenting public questions retained the best of attention 
from his audiences. His strength was in the principles of gov- 
ernment in which he believed. These to him were founded upon 
a conviction of right, and earnestly advocated in his discussion 
of public questions. 

James Powell in the Ottumwa Courier : 

His ability was best exercised as a congressman. There he 
was recognized as one of the ablest men in Congress at a time 
when Congress was composed of able statesmen. He was an 
orator as well as a statesman and in extemporaneous speaking 
few were his equal. Ideas came to him and were worked out 
logically while he was on the rostrum. He was also an able de- 
bater, strong at repartee. He was an authority on railroad law 
and his opinions along this line are still recognized as final. 
He it was who drew up the present railroad laws of Alaska. 
One of the features of these is, that route monopoly is absolutely 
prevented by a wise provision requiring any road which has laid 
tracks through a mountain pass to permit the use of these tracks 
by any other road which has run its line up to the pass. Rea- 
sonable rental for the use of the tracks is all that is required and 
the result is that no road can prevent or smother competition 
by reason of securing the only available routes through the 
mountains. This is just an illustration of his foresight as a 
statesman. In a word, Major Lacey represented the highest type 
of American citizenship. He was temperate and of clean per- 
sonal habits, he had the highest regard for his word, which was 
regarded as good as his bond. 

Hon. George D. Perkins, in the Sioux City Journal: 
He was an influential man in Congress, a prodigious worker, 



BIOGRAPHICAL 33 

and did much to place the name of Iowa in the enviable place it 
filled in those years. Major Lacey was an able lawyer, a force- 
ful man in debate, a willing bearer of responsibility. He was 
not backward in giving service. He had such capacity for work 
that he could do many things. 

Hon. W. G. Ray in the Grinnell Herald: 

For more than a generation he has been one of Iowa's most 
honored citizens. His life has been eminently a useful and a 
helpful one. In all his life there has been little to criticise, but 
much to praise. To us he has always been a typical statesman. 
His private life was pure and simple, without stain. In public 
life he was the soul of honor, a tireless, intelligent worker, a 
statesman who was to place the public good above private advan- 
tage. He had a depth of human sympathy seldom surpassed, 
and his unfailing cheerfulness and loyalty to justice and right, 
made and kept friends through his entire life. Probably no 
man in public life during his generation had a broader or more 
comprehensive view of public affairs and no man ever gave 
more cheerfully of his strength and time to secure useful legis- 
lation. 

Burlington (Iowa) Gazette (Democratic) : 
Congressman Lacey was a member of the old guard of Repub- 
licans, who rendered distinguished service to his country in many 
respects. He was a credit to the state of Iowa. 

Cedar Rapids Gazette : 

Mr. Lacey was a fine type of gentleman whom it was a gen- 
uine pleasure to know. Even his most pronounced political op- 
ponents felt a deep-seated esteem for him — an esteem that 
could not be blotted by all the turmoil of heated political cam- 
paigns. He was one of the ablest of the old guard of Iowa 
republicanism. And he was as uncompromising in his opposi- 
tion to parties and principles in which he did not believe, as he 
was able. 

James M. Mansfield, belonging to the Oskaloosa Her- 
ald's staff, became a member of the Lacey household when 
he was but a boy, and gives a delightful picture of Mr. 



34 MAJOR JOHN F. LACEY 

Lacey 's lovely traits and home life, from which I make 
the following brief extracts : 

As I gazed into his death-stilled face, my rneniory reverted to 
when I was a lad of twelve years of age, and employed at the 
Lacey home ; and many of the scenes and incidents of that time 
came before me as vividly as though it were but yesterday. 
Though then young in years, I seemed to realize that Mr. Lacey 
was a great and good man, and it naturally followed that I 
watched him closely, and admired him. His exemplary routine 
and kindness about his home were so instilled on my youthful 
mind that as the years passed on, I came to a true realization of 
the noble man's worth. No man ever loved and worshiped his 
family more than Mr. Lacey. He held the sacredness of his 
home above all else in the world. His legal and other profes- 
sional business, which were of inexhaustible volume, were a sec- 
ondary consideration. His home and family came first. He was 
the kind of a husband and father that God intended man to be : 
kind, loving, devoted, and pure. And often with childish envy 
have I watched his children run to the old front gate, as I called 
it, to meet him at the noon hour, and how a smile would illum- 
inate his face as he gathered them in his arms and caressed them, 
and I feel safe in saying that there were never happier moments 
in this good man's life than to hear the prattle of his little ones 
coming to meet him. His home-coming was looked forward to 
with joy by his family. I knew it. He was happy in their 
presence. I could see it with my own eyes. He was loath to 
leave them; they hated to see him depart. I see him again in 
the library of his home at evening time — which, by the way, 
was his favorite room — with his family gathered about him, 
and I often tried to conceive of a prettier, more sublime picture 
of happiness and contentment. Such were the environments 
that made the Lacey home an ideal one. And it can also be 
truthfully said, that never was a needy one turned from the 
door of the Lacey home empty-handed. 

Perhaps more than enough has been said to properly 
typify the character and accomplishments of Mr. Lacey ; 
but I could not forbear the elaboration I have given, for 



BIOGRAPHICAL 35 

the reason that the memory of a public man so useful and 
deserving should be perpetuated in a manner broad 
enough to encompass his various traits, and disclose the 
consensus of public and private opinion concerning him. 

In person he was a well-rounded but not apparently 
robust figure of medium height. He was always well 
dressed and I never saw him save in a tightly buttoned 
Prince Albert coat of dark material. He was polite in 
manner and his agreeable address was well calculated to 
ingratiate him in the favor of any company in which he 
might be placed. The last time that I saw him was, I 
think, in 1898. In company with his then unmarried 
daughter he called at my law office in Kansas City, Mis- 
souri, where he found me and my partner, ex-Governor 
Thomas T. Crittenden, with whom I think he was pre- 
viously acquainted. He seemed as vigorous and spright- 
ly as when we separated at the close of the Pleasant An- 
derson murder trial, more than twenty years before. We 
had a delightful little visit, and bade each other, as it 
proved, a last farewell. 

His writings, particularly his sketches of Generals Rice 
and Steele before alluded to, show that if he had devoted 
himself to purely literary pursuits, he would have at- 
tained distinction in that field. 

He was in his seventy-third year at the time of his 
death. He left surviving him his widow, whose maiden 
name was Martha Newell, a most interesting and lovable 
lady, and two daughters, Mrs. James B. Brewster, of San 
Francisco, and Mrs. Carroll E. Sawyer, of Oskaloosa. 



MAJOR JOHN F. LACEY AND THE CONSERVA- 
TION OF OUR NATURAL RESOURCES 



BY L. H. PAMMEL 



When I see the migratory birds passing over Iowa dur- 
ing the chilly days of October or when I wander in the 
forests of the Rockies, where the Sublime Artist has done 
His handiwork, my thoughts go back to my friend, Major 
John F. Lacey, the brave soldier who fought valiantly for 
the Union cause, a statesman who had the whole country 
at heart, not merely Iowa, but Colorado, New Mexico, and 
California as well; one part of the country as well as the 
other received his careful consideration. The great 
cause, the protection of the forests, game, and the pres- 
ervation of antiquities had little of interest to the average 
citizen of Iowa, but to the nation, as a whole, in particular 
to generations yet to come, it will mean much. A friend, 
loyal in every sense of the word, my acquaintance 
reached back a little more than twenty years, and in all 
of these years we exchanged letters pertaining to a sub- 
ject of great interest to him. My last visit was in Oska- 
loosa, about a year ago, when he called my attention to an 
interesting elm found near Tracy. In his conversation 
he was lively, exact, and methodic, always displaying a 
wonderful fund of information. A most remarkable man 
in many ways. 

When the news dispatches announced the sudden death 
of Major John F. Lacey, of Oskaloosa, it cast a shadow 
over the hearts of many friends in this our great common- 
wealth and the many friends in the nation at large. To 
every man or woman interested in the conservation of 



BIOGRAPHICAL 37 

forests, wild game, petrified forests, there comes a feel- 
ing of gratitude and pride that this plain American citizen 
had the foresight to so shape legislation that these things 
might be preserved to the citizens of the present and fu- 
ture generations. 

Major John Fletcher Lacey was born in New Martins- 
ville, West Virginia, May 30, 1841 ; he attended a select 
school in Oskaloosa ; studied law in the office of General 
Samuel A. Rice, under whom he afterwards served in the 
Union army ; twice enlisted as a private in the Third and 
Thirty-third Iowa, and finally was major in the service. 
On his return to Oskaloosa he was admitted to the bar, 
where he won distinction not only as a lawyer, but also an 
author of considerable note. He died on the afternoon of 
September 29, 1913. 
Harvey Ingham, in the Register and Leader, has said : 
He was always a hard-working lawyer. Those who met him 
before the jury and judges before whom he practiced regarded 
him highly. He commanded the respect and confidence of his 
neighbors and friends, and built up a substantial competence at 
the same time that he was winning public recognition. He was 
frequently upon the platform, and his occasional addresses, all 
of them suggesting study and care in preparation, would fill a 
large volume. 

It is my purpose to dwell on the phase of his work 
which had to do with the conservation of the natural re- 
sources of the country. Mr. Freeman Conaway has well 
said : 

Major Lacey will be known in history as the statesman who 
was a friend of the birds. As chairman of the Committee on 
Public Lands, he worked through many reforms ... so 
when he was placed at the head of a committee which was never 
known to have done any work, it became under his direction 
a working body. 

Major Lacey was held in such high esteem by the sports- 
men of the country that the League of American Sports- 



38 MAJOR JOHN F. LACEY 

men started a popular subscription, no amount being 
larger than twenty-five cents, each state and territory in 
the Union being represented, and among the contributors 
was Theodore Roosevelt ; the watch presented to him has 
engraved, on one side a grouse with L. A. S. Protect the 
Game ; on the other side, a beautiful pair of quail and an 
inscription on the inside, "Presented by the League of 
American Sportsmen to the Honorable John F. Lacey, 
the Friend of the Birds, in recognition of his great work 
in securing the passage of the Lacey Game Bill, December 
25,1900." 

Major Lacey was a member of the 51st, 53d, 54th, 55th, 
56th, 57th, 58th, and 59th Congresses. In addition to his 
important work on the committee on elections of which he 
was chairman of the sub-committee to decide the Clayton 
vs. Breckenridge case, he was a member of other impor- 
tant committees. His labors on the committee on elec- 
tions show careful and painstaking work, so much so that 
he was regarded as authority on congressional elections. 
Even at this early date in his congressional career he be- 
came active in forestry and mining laws of the country. 
He secured the passage of a law protecting the lives of 
miners. The Yellowstone National Park, one of the won- 
ders of America, had long been set aside as a national 
park, but without adequate legislation to protect the game 
therein, but, owing to Major Lacey 's interest, the thou- 
sands of visitors can now view with pleasure the wild ani- 
mals of the park. Major Lacey in his apt way has said : 

In that animal republic its citizens have learned that by some 
mysterious influence the great butcher, man, is a harmless and 
interesting creature. The children watch the feeding of the gen- 
tle grizzly, the Ursiis Jwrnbilis of the naturalist. The beaver 
is again building his dams and setting up his little municipal 
governments in the great national playground. 

The birds had his constant care. He succeeded in hav- 



BIOGRAPHICAL 39 

ing the Lacey bird law passed. In an article on game 
protection he says : 

The question of game protection and the preservation of useful 
birds has of late years assumed much interest. It has always 
been the custom to lock the stable door after the horse is gone; 
our ancestors found the land east of the Ohio covered with a 
dense forest, the rivers full of fish and the woods filled with 
game. The abundance of wild life made it seem that the supply 
could never be exhausted. The first necessity was to destroy the 
forests so as to make way for the farms. For more than three 
hundred years destruction was called improvement and it has 
only in recent years come to the attention of the people generally 
that the American people were like spendthrift heirs wasting 
their patrimony. The public conscience has become quickened, 
and the attempt to preserve and restore some of the wild life of 
America is no longer looked upon as a fad or idle sentiment. 

The birds keep the balance between the fruitful fields 
and insects, he argued. He made an early attempt in the 
year 1900 to nationalize the question of game and bird 
preservation. The bill met with much derision for a num- 
ber of years, but the Major persisted, and finally on the 
25th of May it became a law. 

In this connection Emerson Hough in ''Wealth on 
Wings" x makes an interesting allusion to the Lacey bird 
law, as follows : 

It took us all the time from the Articles of Confederation to 
the year 1913 to grow wise enough to apply to this interstate 
wealth the doctrine of interstate commerce. Meantime the wealth 
itself had well-nigh disappeared. 

The wild game of America helped to settle America. In the 
times when it was hardest for a frontiersman to make a living 
the wild game helped him out. The rifle went with ax and 
plow across this continent, and it was the rifle that helped the 
ax and plow in the earlier days of adversity. At first the Amer- 
icans valued only the large game ; but in time they began to use 

i The Saturday Evening Post, November 15, 1913. 



40 MAJOR JOHN F. LACEY 

wildfowl as food — then as a means of sport. Later they began 
to use them as articles of commerce. 

For two entire generations we have sought to put over on the 
American public the impossible doctrine that a man can reap in- 
definitely without sowing at all. We treated our wild-fowl as 
we would a mine, not as we would a farm — on the basis of 
amortization and not of renewal. The man in the city felt that 
he was an American citizen, and had as good a right as anybody 
to eat wild-fowl if he had the price to pay for it. 

There sprang up a large class of professional game killers who 
encouraged him in that belief. They kept on reaping — but no- 
body sowed. We did our best to increase our poultry supply, 
our supply of beef and mutton and pork ; but, even when we did 
our best at such increase, we saw the cost of all these items go up 
with great rapidity. 

What, then, could be expected of a commodity that was treated 
not as a domestic article of trade but on the basis of a mine ? — 
to be used until exhausted. We treated our wild-fowl as a mine. 
We applied state rights to this wealth, which beyond all other 
commodities was, itself, inherently and fundamentally interstate 
wealth. 

We framed a multitude of state laws, based on local whims, 
local ignorance, and local selfishness, with no uniformity even as 
between states in practically the same geographical situation. 
We followed out our ancient right of personal privilege — until 
we faced game fields suddenly gone barren. For half a genera- 
tion thinking men have known that the game of America was 
doomed. 

It was not until a dozen years ago that John F. Lacey, a con- 
gressman from Iowa, conceived the idea that game shipped across 
the state line became subject to the watchful care of the nation 
itself. The Lacey act may be called the first step toward na- 
tional intelligence in the preservation of our wild game. Of 
course its effect was for the good not only of wild-fowl but of 
upland or localized game. 

The Lacey act did not prevent the marketing of many thou- 
sands of tons of wild game, shipped legally or illegally; but it 
did prevent the marketing of yet other thousands of tons that 



BIOGRAPHICAL 41 

otherwise would have been killed and shipped. It recognized 
the old doctrine of the common law — that wild game belonged 
to the man who reduced it to possession ; but it recognized also 
the right of the several states, under their police power, to regu- 
late the killing and shipping of the game, and the accepted doc- 
trine that ownership of game rested in the state. 

This was as far as we had gotten under our old, absurd game- 
warden system. The Lacey act went a step further. It took 
advantage of this very confusion and lack of uniformity in state 
laws and forbade the handling in one state of game illegally 
killed in another. It was a clever use of the blanket utility of 
the interstate commerce idea. 

Still our game decreased — upland birds and wild-fowl as 
well. Under our system of license acts we Americans raised 
nearly two million dollars a year ostensibly to protect our game. 
We protected our politicians instead. It became obvious that a 
few more years would see our game wiped out and the wild-fowl 
shooting pretty much a thing of the past. 

The Lacey bird law did not go far enough, as stated by 
Emerson Hough. Major Lacey had in mind a migratory 
bird law; this is hinted at in one of his addresses. He 
said the government should control migratory birds if it 
could be done by national legislation. He held that game 
located in any state is the property of the people of that 
state. Migratory birds do not belong to any state, and 
the people of all sovereign states are interested in their 
protection. Spring shooting he thought should be for- 
bidden. He was not quite sure that such a law would 
pass the constitutional requirements. He was at work 
on this problem at a time when the Lacey bird law was 
passed and he gave much attention to the subject. Such 
a law has finally been passed — the Weeks-McLean law. 
It was Major Lacey wdio started Congress on the right 
way, assisted by that great Iowan, W. T. Hornaday, who 
has ever been the great friend of the birds. Thus we 
have left to the United States Department of Agriculture 



42 MAJOR JOHN F. LACEY 

the protection of one of our great natural resources. It 
is well also to remember in this connection, as Emerson 
Hough says, "We do not really own that wealth even as 
a nation. It is raised in these days almost wholly out- 
side our national confines." Canada raises most of our 
wild fowl and we have done the shooting. Major Lacey 
secured the passage of a bill forbidding the importation 
of the eggs of wild fowls for commercial purposes from 
Canada. Under the Lacey act the Audubon societies and 
sportsmen secured the designation of many low marshes 
and islands as game preserves. Major Lacey drafted a 
public land bill which was but slightly changed for the 
Philippines, under which the forests, lands, and mines are 
governed, and for the adjustment of all controversies as 
to church lands. 

In an address before the Iowa Federation of Women's 
Clubs, at Waterloo, Iowa, in 1905, he said: "We have a 
wireless telegraph, a crownless queen, a thornless cactus, 
a seedless orange, and a coreless apple. Let us now have 
a birdless hat." 

The subject of national forest reserves early received 
Major Lacey 's attention. During the session of the 51st 
Congress, the forest reserve act was passed, and a na- 
tional system of forest reserves was established, regu- 
lated and under the control of the Department of the 
Interior. Under this statute reserves have been estab- 
listed by executive order, chiefly in the western states. 
Later he was instrumental in the transfer of these re- 
serves to the Department of Agriculture, largely because 
he thought expert knowledge was essential for the proper 
control of the forest reserves. The preservation of the 
national domain, now amounting to more than 100,000,000 
acres, an area as large as Iowa and Missouri combined, 
was not only for sentimental purposes, but the utility of 



BIOGRAPHICAL 43 

the forests. In one of his addresses on the subject he 
said: 

If there had been only the sentimental and poetic side of the 
question, it would still have been worthy of our earnest consider- 
ation. But in forestry there is beauty and utility combined. 
The poet and the painter may rejoice in the contemplation of 
the woods. The young may revel in the inspiration of its pro- 
tecting shade. But the fanner, the miller, the boatman, and the 
lumberman may now combine to preserve as well as to enjoy the 
beneficial uses of this great element of our national wealth. 

He stoutly held that the forests are reserved for the 
use of man and not reserved from his use. No doubt the 
sentimental reasons for not cutting a tree have done much 
to hurt the progress of forestry legislation. 

The cultivation of trees on a large scale and covering 
long periods of time for which the life of an individual 
would be inadequate, is what the Major had in mind when 
he worked for the passage of laws looking towards the 
establishment of forest reserves. In this service for the 
government it has been well said by that great lover of 
the out-of-doors, Theodore Roosevelt: 

I wish to say one word about your congressman, Mr. Lacey, at 
whose request I stopped here. In public life generally we are 
not apt to find the man whose interests go to the whole country, 
as well as for those who have his fate in their hands, and I wish 
to congratulate this district in having in the American congress 
a man who spends his best efforts for the welfare of the whole 
United States. Now, gentlemen, I never say before a man what 
I would not say behind him, or vice versa, and I do not speak 
hyperbolically. When there is a matter I feel is of real and 
serious consequence to the nation as a whole, I can ask Mr. Lacey 
to come to me, or I can go to him, with the absolute certainty that 
he will approach it simply from the standpoint of public service. 
He wishes to do well his duty by the public and in his eye the 
fact that the work is worth doing, is a sufficient reward, and I re- 
gard this as high praise for any man in public life. 



44 MAJOR JOHN F. LACEY 

There is still another line of work that greatly inter- 
ested him, the preservation of the prehistoric ruins on the 
public lands. He became interested along this line about 
the year 1901, and in order to get as comprehensive a 
knowledge of the subject as he could he accepted an in- 
vitation from Prof. Edgar L. Hewett to visit the ruins of 
the cliff dwellers and cave dwellers in the Pajarito region. 
This trip led to the introduction and passage of his bill 
for the preservation of aboriginal ruins and places of 
scenic and scientific interest upon the public domain, un- 
der which the petrified forest, the Olympic range, elk 
reserve, and about two hundred places of ethnological 
interest have been designed as monuments and preserved 
to the public. This also led to the establishment of the 
School of American Archaeology. 

In describing the Rito he says : 

In going into the Rito I stood upon the rim of the caiion in the 
twilight. A rainy mist hung over the mountains. The camp- 
fires were already burning and the scene was one of surpassing 
beauty. In this sequestered valley, where once happy thousands 
made their homes, only the ranch house of Judge Abbott is evi- 
dence of present occupancy. 

As we reluctantly left the valley in the morning the sun was 
shining and the bluest of blue skies arched over the mountains 
and canon walls. 

The Rito is full of interest for the lovers of the beauty of out- 
door life. A visit to its caves and ruined buildings can be well 
followed by another to the Jimez Mountains, and the Zuni, Taos, 
Acoma, and the other living pueblos will reward the curious 
traveler. In this high altitude the deep breathing of the dryest 
and purest air will give health and strength for the battle of life 
in the hard grind of everyday work in this modem, everyday 
world. 

In describing the petrified forest, he said: 
Ages ago, so long that it makes one dizzy to think of it, these 
trees were alive and growing in the Southwest. They were con- 



BIOGRAPHICAL 45 

iferous, as shown by microscopic examination of their texture. 
The species is now extinct and the nearest resembling species now 
found exists in Asia Minor. 

The geological history of this forest is very easy to read. The 
trees have fallen down and floated around in some old arm of the 
sea until the roots and limbs were worn and rounded just as we 
see like examples on the sandbars of the Mississippi. The trees 
became heavy and water logged and settled to the sea bottom. 
They were slowly covered by a deposit of sandstone of forty to 
fifty feet, or more, in thickness, and under this deposit below the 
old sea bed they were slowly transformed into chalcedony of such 
beautiful and varied colors as has been nowhere else equaled. 
Afterwards the land slowly rose until it became an elevated plain, 
7,000 feet above the present sea level. 

Erosion by wind and water has done its work and uncovered 
several thousand acres of this antediluvian plain. The great logs 
lie, many of them, just as they appeared when they first sank to 
their present resting place. Along the edge of the rocky bluffs 
they may be still partly covered with the overlying standstone 
and partly protruding into the excavated valley. 

In this brief statement and life of Major Lacey, I have 
touched but briefly on his work as a statesman, interested 
in the forest, streams, wild animal life of the country. 
There is a lesson for us in the life and work of this man. 
He had steadily in mind when he became chairman of the 
house committee on public lands, the best interest of the 
whole nation. The repeated failures during his early 
career in Congress did not prevent him from trying 
again, and he tried again and again, bringing to fruition 
his long and faithful services in behalf of the wild game, 
the forests, the homes of the cliff dwellers, the petrified 
forests, and monuments of the country. Without this 
long tenure in office, this work never could have been ac- 
complished. A Lacey day in our public schools would 
not be inappropriate, because Major Lacey has done more 
for the protection of bird life and to stimulate forestry 
than any other man ever did in our national life. 



46 MAJOR JOHN F. LACEY 

In Congress and out Major Lacey was a great worker 
and one wonders how lie accomplished so much. His 
work on the Indian committee of the house involved an 
enormous amount of labor. The bill to prepare the In- 
dian for citizenship and a complete civilized form of gov- 
ernment, involved an enormous amount of labor. This 
bill, known as the Curtiss act, became a law. Major 
Lacey secured the passage of a bill to permit the allot- 
ment to intelligent civilized Indians of their share of 
tribal funds. Major Lacey was always a student. He 
made addresses on many different subjects. Thus an ad- 
dress on "Comets" at Penn College shows thoughtful 
study of a subject about which he says little is known. 
"The young men and women of today or of the future 
stand pledged to unmask the secrets of nature in many 
respects, and there is no mystery more interesting than 
the one here discussed. You can catch hold where your 
fathers left off, for their record is preserved, and thus 
each generation can utilize what has gone before, and in 
the end nature will kindly reveal her deepest mysteries." 
He made numerous biographical addresses; the one on 
Wm. Penn, delivered when Penn College conferred on 
him the M. A. degree which he so richly deserved, was 
widely distributed. His address on Chief Justices John 
Marshall and Roger Brooke Taney show a wide range of 
study of the opinions rendered by these eminent jurists. 
The many patriotic addresses are full of inspiration and 
patriotism and no one spoke more from his heart than 
did Major Lacey. Take such addresses as the Shiloh 
Battle Ground, the Northwest Iowa Veterans' Reunion, 
and many others, which are gems of literature on this 
subject. One of the most interesting of documents left 
by Major Lacey is an autobiography written for Mrs. 
Berenice Lacey Sawyer and Mrs. Eleanor Lacey Brew- 
ster. Besides containing an account of his early life there 



BIOGRAPHICAL 47 

are many reminiscences of his congressional life and his 
estimate of public men. He also prepared a book which 
he called "Common Place Book," of 400 pages. On the 
first page he wrote, "In a Common Place Book should 
be found many things not common place." This book 
contains many interesting items from many sources. The 
sketches from abroad are most interesting; always a 
close observer, he was a student. His observations on 
churches and places of interest in Europe are well worthy 
of a place in our literature. 



CLOAKROOM STORIES — REMINISCENCES OF 
CONGRESSMAN JOHN F. LACEY l 

MAJOR LACEY 's RETORT 

Quick retorts in debate, especially in the House, are al- 
ways enjoyed by both sides. When the House was con- 
sidering the pension question in 1893 there was much 
feeling among the Union soldiers, owing to the action of 
Hon. Hoke Smith, of Georgia, secretary of the interior, 
in dropping many thousands of pensioners from the rolls. 
Mr. Lacey was a member of the invalid pension commit- 
tee, and was discussing the question in general debate on 
the pension appropriation bill. Colonel Livingston, of 
Georgia, interrupted him with the statement that there 
were thousands of fraudulent pensioners and that their 
names were properly dropped by the secretary. Mr. 
Lacey replied, "What the soldiers complain of is that 
while in 1864 the boys in blue were marching through 
Georgia, in 1893 Georgia is marching through the boys in 
blue." 

CAMPAIGN" ANECDOTE OF LACEY 

The Iowans place Major Lacey high among campaign- 
ers. One of his colleagues delighted the cloakroom with 
this anecdote about him: "Mr. Lacey was elected to 
Congress for the first time in 1888 over General J. B. 
Weaver who had three times been elected in the district. 
One of the most notable campaigns ever made in Iowa 
was waged between these two men. They had joint dis- 
cussions in every county and people turned out in mass 

i Copyrighted by Champ Clark, 1900. 



BIOGRAPHICAL 49 

at the meetings. The main issues that year were the 
Mills bill and the question of free trade. Mr. Lacey used 
the argument so common in that campaign that the Mills 
bill was in the interest of the English manufacturer and 
against the American workman. At Newton, Iowa, the 
speakers stood under the court-house portico with a vast 
throng in front of them. The Sackville-West affair had 
just occurred, in which the British minister had written 
a letter advising all naturalized Englishmen to vote the 
Democratic ticket. Mr. Lacey of course made good use 
of this incident. General Weaver closed the debate that 
day, and just as he was nearing the last part of his very 
eloquent and beautiful peroration two birds fluttered 
down in front of him from the portico above and hung 
balanced in the air a few feet in front of his breast. They 
fluttered playfully against each other and remained in the 
same position for perhaps thirty seconds. The General 
caught the inspiration of the situation and throwing up 
his hands and raising his eyes towards heaven, said in 
earnest tones, 'The very birds in the air bring happy 
omens of our victory.' Quick as a flash Major Lacey 
spoiled all this oratorical effect by rising and crying out, 
' Beware of them, General! They are English spar- 
rows.' 

"Here the General's time expired and the crowd dis- 
persed laughing and shouting. Until the end of the cam- 
paign everyone talked of the pestiferous English spar- 
rows nestling in the bosom of the eloquent general. Gen- 
eral Weaver in accounting for his defeat always gave 
considerable weight to this incident." 



IOWA'S CONGRESSMAN AT HOME 1 

"How will I get to see Congressman Lacey?" inquired 
an old soldier from the country of a local newspaper re- 
porter on the street one afternoon this summer. 

"Just go up that stairway between the book store and 
the shoe store," replied the reporter, "and turn to your 
left." 

"Yes," rejoined the old soldier, "but he does not know 
me, and I want to see him. I don 't want to be put off by 
a clerk." 

"No danger of that," returned the reporter, "if he's 
there, you'll see him." 

And so the old comrade went up the stairway and 
turned to his left. Opening the door he saw sitting be- 
fore him in a large room filled with papers, documents, 
and books, the man who has made his mark in the coun- 
cils of the nation, and who recently has been much men- 
tioned as a possible candidate for governor of Iowa. 
"Come in," were the first words spoken, and their tone 
quickly relieved the stranger of all embarrassment. 

He soon made known his mission. He had been ex- 
amined for a pension and a favorable report had been 
sent in a long time before, but weary of waiting he had 
decided to do what many of his comrades and neighbors 
had done, "see what Major Lacey could do." In less 
than five minutes Mr. Lacey had a complete history of the 
man's life, knew all about his army record, and his dis- 
abilities, and had every necessary date on record. "I 
will write to the department at once," said Mr. Lacey, 

i Des Moines (Iowa) Register and Leader, July 28, 1904. 



BIOGRAPHICAL 51 

"and do all I can to get a favorable report in your case." 
Before the old comrade had reached the bottom of the 
stairs a stenographer was writing a letter to Washing- 
ton, telling all about his case, and in less than three weeks 
he received notice that his claim had been allowed. 



FUNERAL OF MAJOR JOHN F. LACEY l 

Funeral services of the late Major John F. Lacey were con- 
ducted Friday afternoon, October 3, 1913, from the family resi- 
dence. The services were in the open, from the porch of the 
family home, in the presence of thousands of citizens and out of 
town guests. Practically the entire day was given over to the 
funeral of the distinguished dead and even the afternoon of the 
day preceding witnessed the arrival of many from neighbor- 
ing and distant towns of the state, desirous of expressing by their 
presence the respect and homage due the memory of the man. 
While Thursday had been designated as the day for the ' ' lying 
in state, ' ' hundreds of old friends and citizens called at the home 
Friday forenoon and afternoon, even to the hour for the last 
formal ceremony. Realization of the death of John F. Lacey 
has come slowly and with difficulty for the many, while compre- 
hension for the truth still struggles with others — those who have 
been close to the man in daily life, who, perhaps, have known 
him best. 

But the end came as he had wished. To a company of friends 
one day, commenting upon his ceaseless labor and striving in the 
activities of this workaday world and questioning why he should 
not, as he might, lessen his stride and slacken his pace, this tire- 
less, indefatigable worker replied: "I would remain active — 
in full possession of health and mind, to the end — I could not be 
at ease otherwise." And thus it was. But in the end the man 
stands revealed and his greatness — the significance and beauty 
of his life is emphasized. The example of his life must endure 
and he has left a heritage that all might "wish to hold in fee." 

To no other citizen or resident of Oskaloosa has been paid the 
signal honor that on Friday afternoon was accorded the memory 
of John F. Lacey. Every flag was at half mast, and business 
was suspended during the afternoon. From two o'clock prac- 

i Oskaloosa (Iowa) Daily Herald, Saturday, October 4, 1913. 



BIOGRAPHICAL 53 

tically every office, store and shop was dosed. Thousands of 

people were at the home. Almost every one in town was at the 
place of funeral and the throng was swelled by the visiting hosts 
that came by train, by auto, or other conveyance. The crowd at 
the residence at the hour of service has been variously estimated. 
Gathered together at one time on the Lacey lawn were enough 
people to fill the largest auditorium in the city several times 
over. In addition the streets in all directions from the home 
were lined and crowded with people a block distant. People 
stood about, the business streets, and when the procession moved 
to the cemetery the streets leading thereto were all occupied by a 
moving mass of humanity. Besides the number that tilled all the 
rooms of the home, the crowd on the lawn extended far beyond 
the reach of the voice. Weather conditions favored the occasion. 
The day was perfect. The services following the viewing of the 
casket were simple and brief. Rev. Allen Judd, of St. Paul's 
Episcopal church, Des Moines, read the Episcopal service and 
made a few brief remarks touching the life and the service of 
the departed. Major Lacey had been a member and vestryman 
of the St. James Episcopal church of Oskaloosa for years and the 
irreproachable life of the man was an index of his faith and his 
belief. A few brief words of prayer and consolation, the sing- 
ing of the quartette from the Episcopal choir, Misses Helen Kal- 
bach and Josephine Rover, Messrs. Warren Kalbach and Evan (.!. 
Morgan, with Miss Pearle Porter, organist. Loved and familiar 
hymns; the reading of original lines dedicated to the memory of 
the man, by the author. Major S. II. M. Ryers, of Des Moines, 
and the formalities were transferred to Forest Cemetery. At the 
grave the G. A. R. was in charge; Mrs. Virginia Knight Logan 
and Miss Reulah Drinkle sang. 

Moving from the residence the funeral procession headed south 
on Market, street into A avenue, and thence east and north to the 
cemetery entrance. Company F of the Iowa. National Guard, a 
special guard of honor, was in advance, followed by the old sol- 
diers, the local G. A. R. and visiting soldiers, about one hundred 
in number; old soldiers in carriages; funeral attendants in car- 
riages; the pall bearers, all members of the Thirty-third Iowa 
regiment survivors, George W. Schee, of Chariton, Joint A. Shan- 



54 MAJOR JOHN F. LACEY 

non, Benjamin Cruzen, M. W. Crozier, Albert Cooper, Fred But- 
ler and William Shaw, of Oskaloosa, with James Adair and A. J. 
Bass, of Oskaloosa, in reserve ; special escort, the members of the 
vestry of St. James Episcopal church, of which Mr. Lacey had 
been a member. The marching body of the G. A. R. was fol- 
lowed by the Knights of Pythias, of which organization there was 
a large turnout; about one hundred members of the Mahaska 
county bar and members of neighboring bar associations and rep- 
resentatives of the state bar association ; officials of the Mahaska 
county court house and the district court ; members of the press 
and members of the Woodmen of the World fraternal society. 
The funeral car bearing the casket was followed by the carriages 
with the members of the family and close personal friends and 
members of the Woman's Relief Corps and ladies of the G. A. R. 
Nineteen carriages in all were occupied, and twenty-five automo- 
biles made up the closing feature of the funeral procession. 

Arrived at the cemetery the closing ceremonies were under the 
auspices of the G. A. R., Colonel McNeill, Chaplain J. L. Moore 
and other members of Phil Kearney Post officiating, and words 
of the ritual service were freighted with a new significance for 
all who heard. Crowds of people had anticipated the procession 
or kept pace with it and the attendance at the grave, like that at 
the house service, was exceedingly large. 

Since the announcement of the death of Mr. Lacey the sym- 
pathies of friends and people generally have been given expres- 
sion through many avenues, many in personal notes, messages 
and cablegram, others in floral tributes, and of these there was 
a magnificent and touching array, from many of unusual size and 
beauty to the simple but loving expression of school children, the 
boys and girls to whom Major Lacey had endeared himself in 
many little ways, personal kindnesses and favors, visits to the 
schools, and his connection with the Thirty-third Regiment Flag 
Fund. The floral pieces were massed in a room of the home and 
were innumerable. 

While Major Lacey had a most extended acquaintance through 
city and county, throughout the state, and over the entire nation, 
no man of the city has commanded a closer or more extended 



BIOGRAPHICAL 55 

personal friendship among all people, and in these favored in- 
timates he found a keen pleasure and enjoyment. 

INCIDENTS OP THE OCCASION 

Incidental to the funeral ceremony yesterday afternoon, the 
Oskaloosa police force rendered an excellent service at the home. 
Officers were stationed one block distant in all streets leading 
from the house and kept the streets clear of vehicles. This made 
possible the accommodation of more people than would other- 
wise have been accomplished. 

Public service sought out Major Lacey irrespective of politics 
or position. The Major was recently appointed a member of a 
permanent "National Commission for the Protection of Migra- 
tory Birds," by Secretary of Agriculture Houston, of Missouri. 
That Mr. Lacey might have the records of the commission at 
hand he was elected secretary of that body. He was considered 
the one best man in the land for the position. 

Persons near to the south porch at the Lacey home yesterday 
were witness to a touching demonstration that seemed unusually 
appropriate and expressive, inasmuch as Major Lacey, as father 
of the national bird law, has done great service for his feathered 
friends. A handsome dove at the beginning of the funeral ser- 
vice, flew down and lit upon a projection of the porch and re- 
mained in the position during the entire funeral program, cooing 
and demonstrating, as if in the effort to bear some special mes- 
sage. Nor did the bird leave the position until after the casket 
had been borne away and the procession was moving from the 
house. 

Major Lacey a few days ago, following the Thirty-third Iowa 
reunion, held in Oskaloosa, was made the recipient of a special 
attention, something of a mark of appreciation at the hands of 
George W. Schee, father of the Thirty-third Regiment Flag 
Fund. Mr. Schee presented the Major with a fine phonograph 
and library of records. The instrument is one of the best and 
most handsome made and the library is extensive. Major Lacey 
was particularly pleased with the attention shown him by Mr. 
Schee and he had much pleasure with the splendid present. 



A POEM — JOHN F. LACEY 
By Majoe S. H. M. Byers 

Born with the humble, with the humble bred, 
Save what himself had gathered on the road ; 

An earnest life, and strenuous, he led, 

And reaped at last the harvest that he sowed. 

Not all, perhaps; there was another height 
He yearned to reach, for he had wings to fly ; 

But, all at once, the daylight turned to night, 
And voices told him it was time to die. 

One day a youth before a city stood, 

And asked for labor just to earn his bread ; 

' ' Come in, ' ' they said, but never dreamed they would 
Some day bewail him as their noblest dead. 

'Twas not by accident, nor fate, nor chance 
He found the goal so many failed to find; 

Work, work, was written on his shield and lance, 
The eternal sharpener of the human mind. 

Not labor only, he had time to know 

The fields, the forests, and the birds at dawn ; 
Each plumed creature in a requiem low 

Will say farewell to him who now is gone. 

He won the dearest that there is in life — 
The high esteem of men who knew him best; 

E 'en they who met him in the fiercest strife, 
Will shed a tear that he is gone to rest. 

Good-night, the sod can never wholly hide 
Beloved names, nor memory banish quite; 

Across the river and across the tide 

We reach our hands and only say good-night. 



FUNERAL SERMON 

BY REV. ALLEN JUDD 

Mr. Judd used the beautiful burial service of the Epis- 
copal church, which Mr. Lacey loved. "I am the resur- 
rection and the life, saith the Lord, he that believeth in 
me though he were dead yet shall he live, and whosoever 
liveth and believeth in me shall never die. " ' ' Lord Thou 
hast been our refuge from one generation to another." 
''For this corruptible must put on incorruption and this 
mortal must put on immortality. So when this corrup- 
tible shall have put on incorruption and this mortal shall 
have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass 
the saying that is written, death is swallowed up in vic- 
tory. ' ' 

The choir, consisting of Messrs. Evan Morgan and 
Warren Kalbach, and Misses Helen Kalbach and Jo 
Boyer, sang those touchingly beautiful hymns, "Lead, 
Kindly Light, ' ' and ' ' Now the Day is Over. ' ' 

The people had assembled in vast numbers, filling the 
house and the spacious lawn and even the streets beyond 
with a silent, reverent, grief-stricken throng. The sol- 
emn occasion and surroundings were far more eloquent 
than any human words could be. Mr. Judd said in brief : 

There is little left for me to say which your hearts 
have not already said. Had it been thought fitting at this 
time to pay verbal tribute to the memory of our brother 
there are those here from the highest councils of the state 
and nation, representatives of the bench and bar and of 
the press, members of the Grand Army of the Republic, 
and of other civic and benevolent bodies, fellow-citizens 



58 MAJOR JOHN F. LACEY 

and friends in public and in private life who would feel 
it a privilege, though a sad one, to offer here their elo- 
quent tributes of admiration and esteem. Friends, I 
yield to you a greater eloquence, but not a greater love 
for the one who is gone. But your silent presence is a 
higher and a finer tribute than the most eloquent words 
could be. 

It is for me, only to pronounce the benediction of the 
Church upon a beloved son, and a constant and faithful 
worshiper in her sanctuaries, and, if I may, God helping 
me, to say a brief word of comfort to those whose hearts 
are saddest today. 

We are but as little children here, and this is God's 
world, and He is our Father, and we are His children in 
His presence and under His care. "The very hairs of 
our heads are all numbered. ' ' And ' ' not a sparrow falls 
to the ground without our Father." We do feel the 
presence of the Eternal Infinite more at such times as 
this than at other times. Shall we not try to feel more 
and more that we are personally, each one, under His 
watchful, loving care ? One by one He calls His children 
to come up higher, to be nearer to Him. It would seem 
more terrible still of He called them all at once. One by 
one they must go, even though sobbing hearts remain be- 
hind. It could not be otherwise. He has called our 
brother; and we never knew him to fail in answering 
promptly the highest call. And how promptly, how 
quickly he answered this call! It seems to us all too 
quickly. There was no time to say "good-bye." At 
one o'clock he passed into the unseen world. And I 
think he would have had it so. He had time for the little 
kindnesses, for the promptings of affection in the home 
life, to love the birds and trees and flowers and every- 
thing that God has made; time always to spend God's 
Holy Day in His Holy Temple, but never time for inac- 



BIOGRAPHICAL 59 

tivity. And it is not " good-bye" save for just a little 
while. You shall see him again. Maybe you whose 
hearts are throbbing so with grief today will find some 
time that his going before has meant more for you than 
you can now realize. Shall I try to tell you what I mean? 
Jesus says, "In my Father's house are many man- 
sions, if it were not so I would have told you. I go to 
prepare a place for you." And again in another place 
He says : ' ' The works that I do shall ye do also. ' ' May- 
be it is the privilege of those who are first called, to aid 
the Master as He prepares the mansions in "that house 
not made with hands." Jesus' words would seem to 
imply that it is. I often think of the husband and father, 
whose constant thought and care has been to make a 
home — a happy home for his loved ones here. If he be 
the first one called, maybe he, like the pioneer in a new 
country, goes to prepare a place. Maybe the Master ap- 
points him that labor of love to do — to plan, to build, to 
furnish, to make ready and to wait till his own shall come. 
Then in the Master's presence, with the old fond look and 
word, he shall greet and welcome them home — to that 
home which he with the Lord Jesus has prepared, ' ' eter- 
nal in the heavens." I like to think that this is so — 
that it will be so for you who mourn today — that he who 
went from you so quickly did not go a stranger into a 
strange land; but that well remembered faces met him, 
and well remembered voices greeted him and made him 
welcome ; as he and others you remember will greet and 
welcome you. 



RESOLUTIONS 

BOONE AND CROCKETT CLUB 

Extract from minutes of meeting of executive commit- 
tee of Boone and Crockett Club, held October 27, 1913 : 

The Boone and Crockett Club deeply regrets the death of its 
associate member, Major John F. Lacey, of Oskaloosa, Iowa. 

Major Lacey 's life was a busy one. A soldier in the Civil 
War, a lawyer in active practice, an author of legal works, and 
later prom i nent in politics, he represented his district in Con- 
gress for eight sessions. 

It is as an active worker in behalf of game conservation that 
Major Lacey is most widely known and in the death of the 
''Father of Federal Game Legislation" those interested in game 
protection in America feel that they have lost a leading soldier 
from their ranks. 

Of Major Lacey 's many services to the American public, two 
which stand out preeminent were the introduction and carrying 
through Congress of the act of May 7, 1894, for the protection 
of birds and animals in the Yellowstone National Park, and the 
act of 1900, which regulates interstate commerce in game. 

Congress had established the Yellowstone Park twenty years 
before, had considered many bills concerning it, and had appro- 
priated money for its protection and improvement, but it had 
failed to enact a law for the park's government. Major Lacey 
took steps to remedy this omission, and his enthusiasm and en- 
ergy carried through the act of May 7, 1894, and made protection 
possible for that reservation. 

The act regulating interstate commerce in game, bears, and 
will carry down to posterity, his honored name. 

Major Lacey 's death has deprived the cause of game protec- 
tion of one of its most able and energetic advocates. 

As an expression of its sense of personal loss in the death of 



BIOGRAPHICAL Gl 

Major Lacey, the Boone and Crockett Club, by its executive com- 
mittee, directs that this minute be entered on its records, and 
that a copy of it be sent to Major Lacey 's widow. 

MAHASKA COUNTY BAK ASSOCIATION * 

Mahaska County Bar Association met in special ses- 
sion at the court room in Oskaloosa, Monday, October 13, 
1913, in honor of the late Major John Fletcher Lacey, one 
of its members, who was called suddenly to his reward, 
Monday, September 29th. Judge K. E. Willcockson, of 
Sigourney, had adjourned court for the afternoon, that 
the memorial program might have what time was desired. 
George C. True, president of the bar association, called 
for order about two o'clock and the chair was addressed 
by George W. Seevers, chairman of the committee on 
resolutions. 

James A. Devitt followed and eulogized the departed 
member in tribute at once touching and eloquent, and read 
the following letter from John C. Williams, of Florida, 
late of the local bar. 
To the Honorable Judge of the District Court and members of 

the Oskaloosa bar: 

To the many tributes that have been given, I wish to add my 
simple one to the memory of Major Lacey. I first became ac- 
quainted with him in my young manhood days and the friend- 
ship formed at that time remained unbroken till his death. No 
one could know Major Lacey that did not admire and respect 
him. His professional life was marked by a splendid ability 
and perfect integrity. His political life embraced many years 
in Congress and his devotion to his party and belief in its polit- 
ical policies was of the highest order. In all the stormy times 
of his political career and in the strenuous battles that he waged, 
it can be said to his lasting honor and credit that not a breath of 
scandal was breathed against him, and when he left political life 
he left it as pure and as clean as when he entered it. 

i From pamphlet issued by the Oskaloosa (Iowa) Daily Herald, 1913. 



62 MAJOR JOHN F. LACEY 

But what appealed to me most of all in Major Lacey's career 
was his private life. No man could have been purer, no man 
could have been cleaner; devoted to his family, his domestic re- 
lations were ideal. His life was an inspiration to all who knew 
him. 

Then followed talks by numerous members of the bar, 
old and young, in which they paid tribute to the memory 
of the late Major Lacey. Each one had some incident to 
relate of the man who had been their friend upon all oc- 
casions though not infrequently their opponents in the 
practice of law. Each speaker presented some new phase 
of the man's life, or held out some trait of his character 
for emulation. Talks were made by former Judge Ben 
McCoy, L. T. Shangle, Supreme Judge Byron W. Pres- 
ton, John 0. Malcolm, 0. C. G. Phillips, H. H. Sheriff, 0. 
N. Downs, Dan Davis, Frank T. Nash, S. V. Reynolds, W. 
H. Keating, C. Ver Ploeg, Liston McMillen, District 
Judge K. E. Willcockson, and in summing up the heart 
tributes that had found expression with the bar associ- 
ates, Mr. True concluded the meeting with the following 
appropriate and well expressed sentiments : 

As one of the members of the bar of Mahaska County, and one 
who had a most pleasant and personal professional acquaintance 
with Major Lacey I am impressed with this thought: that life, 
death, and the great unknown, commencing with humanity and 
unconsciously drifting into infinity, are what We make them. 

I firmly believe the good we do is immortal; that every good 
impulse of our hearts put in action, lives on and on, gathering 
strength, momentum, and grandeur as the years go by. 

Such a life, active, energetic and impressive to the very mo- 
ment of its translation as an advocate before the greatest of all 
Tribunals, has Major Lacey builded so well for himself and by 
such translation bequeathed it to you and to me as a legacy most 
worthy of emulation. 

Judge Preston made formal second to the resolutions, 



BIOGRAPHICAL 63 



o 



which were adopted by a rising vote and the meeting 
stood adjourned. Judge Willcockson then convened 
court momentarily to receive a motion from the bar that 
the resolutions be spread upon the court record and it 
was so ordered and court stood adjourned for the day in 
honor of the memory of one of the greatest lawyers 
county or state has produced. The resolutions, read by 
George W. Seevers, chairman of the committee who also 
made some remarks fitting the occasion, follow: 

In memoriam, John Fletcher Lacey as presented to the District 
Court of Mahaska County, Iowa, on this 13th day of October, 
A. D. 1913. 

Major John F. Lacey, the son of John M. and Eleanor Patton 
Lacey, was born at New Martinsville, Virginia, on the 30th day 
of May, 1841, was 72 years, 3 months and 29 days old at the 
time of his death. He died at his home at Oskaloosa, Iowa, on 
the 29th day of September, 1913. He was apparently in perfect 
health to the time of his death, which was almost instantaneous. 

Major Lacey came to Oskaloosa in 1855 when about fourteen 
years of age and thereafter attended here the public and select 
schools until he entered upon the study of law with the firm of 
Rice, Meyers & Rice, of this city. 

At the outbreak of the Civil War he early enlisted as a private 
in Company H, Third Iowa Infantry, was taken prisoner at the 
battle of Blue Mills, was paroled, exchanged and reenlisted in 
Company D, Thirty-third Iowa Infantry, was rapidly promoted, 
and served on staff duty, reaching the rank of major, which he 
held to the close of the war. 

On the 19th day of September, A. D. 1865, at Oskaloosa, Iowa, 
he was united in marriage with Miss Martha Newell, who, with 
two daughters, still survives him. 

At the close of the war he returned to Oskaloosa, and resumed 
the study of law, and late in the summer of 1865 was admitted to 
the bar of this state. He at once entered upon the practice of 
his profession and early formed a co-partnership with Mr. Wil- 
liam E. Sheppard, which continued until the removal of Mr. 



64 MAJOR JOHN F. LACEY 

Sheppard to California. After his partnership thus dissolved, 
he formed a co-partnership with his brother, Mr. W. R. Lacey, 
which continued to the time of his death. 

Major Lacey was known as a good and careful student of the 
law. He had a well trained, analytical mind, rose rapidly in his 
profession and was soon recognized as a worthy member of the 
first rank, and at his death was president of the State Bar As- 
sociation. 

He was also a good reader of classic literature, with a retentive 
memory which made him always an interesting host and personal 
entertainer. 

In his home he was a kind, indulgent, and beloved husband 
and father. A consistent member of the Episcopal church, he 
held a confident faith in an immortality beyond the grave. 

At the bar he was courteous, dignified and thorough; a dili- 
gent student, forceful in argument, graceful in manner, attrac- 
tive in address. Among his strong characteristics were his in- 
tense public spirit, manifested at all times to go forward in the 
betterment of the community by personal effort and material aid. 
His motto was ' ' Hard work is the price of success. ' ' Such men 
deserve the fame they leave and so will Major Lacey go down 
in the history of his state, a really great man in whatever he 
undertook in life, because he deserved to be great. He was a 
public speaker of ability and in personal conversation charmed 
those with whom he came in contact. 

While pursuing the practice of law in Mahaska county, he was 
elected and served in the lower house of the 13th General As- 
sembly of Iowa. He compiled the Railway Digest which bears 
his name and is a work of paintaking research. This work was 
well received by the profession and was highly creditable to its 
diligent and care-taking author. 

In politics Major Lacey was a Republican of the old school and 
he lived it with an intensity known to but few. He was chair- 
man of the Republican State Convention in 1898, and also a 
member of the lower house of the 51st, 53d, 54th, 55th, 56th, 57th, 
58th, and 59th Congress and thus, for sixteen years, represented 
the Sixth Congressional district of Iowa in the lower house. 



BIOGRAPHICAL 65 

During this time, he was a member of important committees and 
helpful in the enactment of legislation for the public good. 

A life-long friend of Major Lacey and a poet of wide fame, 
Major S. H. M. Byers, so fittingly and feelingly spoke of him in 
verse upon the day of his funeral that we have thought his words 
worthy of a place in this record and therefore adopt them. 

So has our brother gone to join that life to come which men 
like him have made for us, who soon shall follow, the better by 
our living. 

IOWA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY AND THE IOWA PARK 
AND FORESTRY ASSOCIATION 

The Iowa State Horticultural Society and the Iowa 
Park and Forestry Association in joint session, state 
house, Des Moines, on December 10th, unanimously ex- 
press their great appreciation of the work that Major 
J. F. Lacey did as a soldier and citizen. That his work 
in connection with the protection of our birds, the setting 
aside of forest reserves, monuments, and petrified for- 
ests, and his great interest in conservation of our natural 
resources deserve our gratitude as American citizens and 
lovers of nature. That these resolutions be sent to the 
bereaved family. 



ADDRESSES, PAPERS, AND LETTERS OF MAJOR 

LACEY 



THE DESTRUCTION AND REPAIR OF OUR NAT- 
URAL RESOURCES l 

The people of this continent do not sufficiently appre- 
ciate the immensity of the period that nature employed 
in building the New World and preparing it as a home 
for civilized man, nor how easily those advantages may 
be destroyed. When first Columbus set his foot upon 
these shores the vast forests and splendid prairies lay 
rich and inviting as the home of the coming race. The 
forest, which has done so much to prepare the earth for 
man's use, was encountered by the early settlers along 
the whole Atlantic shore. The necessity of clearing 
away this vast mass of vegetation led the pioneer to look 
upon the woods as the enemy of man. The ax was used 
unsparingly, and but few specimens of the original con- 
tinental forests still remain. 

Trees have their poetic as well as their practical side. 
While sensible to their beauty, we are now deeply con- 
cerned in their utility. All they have asked heretofore 
has been standing room. Give them but place, and they 
will patiently do their work. Their long arms have 
reached out for ages, and gathered from the air the ele- 
ments of growth which they have added to the soil. As 
one poet has expressed it: 

Cedars stretch their palms like holy men at prayer ; 
and another speaks of them in winter, 

With their bare arms stretched in prayer for the snows. 

i Delivered before the American Forestry Association and the National 
Geographic Society in joint meeting, January 27, 1896, by Hon. John F. 
Lacey, M. C, chairman committee on public lands. 



70 MAJOR JOHN F. LACEY 

They gather the sunshine year by year and store it away 
for future use. They fertilize the soil ; they beautify it. 

In a few old churchyards on the eastern shore of Mary- 
land may be seen the remains of the splendid forest that 
once covered that region. The sight of these specimens 
makes us regret that larger areas of the ancient forest 
had not remained untouched. It was necessary to cut 
down a part of the forests, but man has swept them from 
the earth with the besom of destruction. 

We are beginning to realize the wastefulness with 
which we have treated the gifts of nature. We found 
this continent a storehouse of energy and wealth. The 
climate was salubrious. The soil was fertile. The for- 
ests spread on every hand. The rivers teemed with fish. 
The earth and air alike furnished supplies of game. 
Great coal deposits were found in almost every state. 
Coal oil and natural gas arose to the explorer from the 
bowels of the earth. 

The prodigality of the sun is something amazing. 
When we think how few of its rays strike the earth or any 
of the planets in proportion to those that are constantly 
shed from its surface, we are led to wonder if they ever 
can be exhausted. Man is as prodigal of his natural 
possessions as the sun of its heat, light, and energy. We 
have not been content with improving upon nature, but 
have acted the spendthrift part in wasting her stores. 
The coal has been preserved in spite of man by vast 
strata of earth and stone, and there has been less waste- 
ful extravagance in the use of this valuable mineral than, 
perhaps, any other of nature's gifts, and yet we are be- 
ginning to compute the time when the anthracite will only 
be found in the collections of museums. The coal oil has 
been wasted and wells have been opened and fields de- 
stroyed as though the supply was inexhaustible. Natural 
gas deposits have been tapped, and the wasting gas set 



ADDRESSES OF MAJOR LACEY 71 

on fire, lighting the country for miles around. These 
vast stores of nature's forces are being rapidly ex- 
hausted. 

* i 
The extermination of the buffalo is too recent and too 
shameful to speak of excepting in the highest terms of in- 
dignation. Instead of taking these vast herds and, after 
giving them proper marks of identity, dividing them up 
and assuming proprietary rights over them, they have 
been slaughtered by the hundred thousand for the sheer 
pleasure of killing, until now a little handful of two or 
three hundred is all that is left of the millions which 
roamed the plains forty years ago; and this was called 
sport. It required nothing like the expert skill of the 
pig-sticker who, covered with blood, presides over the 
scenes of carnage in one of our great slaughter-houses. 

But it is to the forests that we wish more particularly 
to direct our attention at this time. . . In the early 
days men often cut down trees for the wild fruit that 
grew upon them. The beautiful service-berry has been 
well nigh exterminated by this barbarous practice. This 
was a sin against nature. A few years ago I visited the 
great region of the northern Pacific Coast, where today 
is perhaps the grandest forest now remaining on the face 
of the earth. It can no longer be described as 

The continuous woods 

Where rolls the Oregon, and hears no sound 

Save his own dashings; 

for the hand of man is busily engaged in building up new 
states in that splendid country. 

Splendid trees, five and six feet in diameter and hun- 
dreds of years of age, were being destroyed. Auger 
holes were bored in the tree near the ground, coal oil 



72 MAJOR JOHN F. LACEY 

poured in the holes, a match applied, and the tree burned 
down. Other holes were bored in the body of the tree, 
and with the assistance of more coal oil a splendid tree 
was soon reduced to ashes. During the dry season these 
fires were permitted to escape and pass through the for- 
ests, covering and concealing the whole earth with a 
cloud of smoke, and rapidly working in this new field the 
same useless destruction which has followed in man's 
footsteps in every part of the continent. 

This sin on the Pacific Coast is only greater than that 
which was committed on the Atlantic shore because the 
forests are finer, and the mistake made in the wanton de- 
struction of the timber in the East ought to have been a 
warning in the West. They have an awful example to 
shun and not to follow. 

In central and southern Italy the Appenines are a 
striking illustration of the results of forest destruction. 
The ghastly seams into which the rains have washed 
lands that were once as fertile as any in the world, have 
utterly destroyed much of that country for agricultural 
purposes. Surrounded as Italy is by the Mediterranean, 
the effects upon her climate have not perhaps been as bad 
as would follow in the interior part of the continent. 
But nature seems to have given up the struggle with man, 
and Hawthorne tells us that where man 's hand has carved 
a stone in Italy its reclamation from nature is permanent, 
whilst in the north of Europe, or in the British Isles, na- 
ture claims its own again, and covers the bricks and rocks 
with moss, lichens, or ivy. 

Nothing is so beautiful as a running stream in a state 
of nature. It is a living thing, always sparkling, never 
growing old. The brook, where the forests still protect 
it from destruction in its course to the sea, is a symbol 
of eternity. To the poet it says, 



ADDRESSES OF MAJOR LACEY 73 

Men may come, and men may go, 
But I go on forever. 

But in the land of Holy Writ, where the forests were 
but few, the brook was no such type of constancy. In 
Job, the brook is described as an emblem of deceit, frozen 
up in the winter and dried up in the summer. "My 
brethren have dealt deceitfully as a brook, and as a 
stream of brooks they pass away. . . The paths of 
their way are turned aside; they come to nothing and 
perish." 

The brook that Horace describes in his journey to 
Brundusium still flows in the same banks, and seems like 
a living thing, speaking of the poet of two thousand years 
ago. 

The Hon. Timothy Brown, one of the leading lawyers 
of Iowa, has a discouraging theory which he supports 
with a considerable array of corroborating facts. He 
assures us that the magnetic pole is moving eastward at 
the rate of seven miles a year, and as it moves the area 
of drought in the Rocky Mountain region progresses at 
the same rate, and in due time Ohio will be as arid as 
Wyoming or Nevada. 

We must not mistake mere weather for climate. We 
may have a scarcity of rainfall, and that scarcity may be- 
come serious enough to lead us to apprehend a danger- 
ous permanent change of climate, whilst it may be true 
that a similar condition of things has prevailed many 
times in the past in the same region, followed by a return 
of sufficient moisture. 

But it seems to be the united opinion of all ages and in 
all countries that rain produces forests, and that forests 
produce rain; that great and injurious changes of cli- 
mate almost certainly follow any sweeping and general 
destruction of the woods. 

Trees set out along hedge rows will undoubtedly do 



74 MAJOR JOHN F. LACEY 

much in ameliorating climatic conditions, but great 
masses of forest, where considerable regions are shaded 
and protected, are essential to the preservation of the 
climatic conditions that have brought so much prosperity 
to this country in the past. 

In the Northwest the last few years of drought have 
prepared the people as a whole for the study of this ques- 
tion. The shrinking of the Great Lakes is already plain- 
ly noticeable, and active efforts for their preservation 
and restoration should be made without delay. 

In Iowa some of the most beautiful of the little lakes 
have been drained and turned into fertile fields, whilst 
others have dwindled so as to be only a mere reminder 
of their former beauty. If the destruction of these 
bodies of water only entailed the loss of their beauty, a 
practical people might accept the change without any 
very great regret; but when the reclamation of a com- 
paratively small area of land to cultivation imperils the 
water supply of thousands of surrounding farms, it is 
high time to call a halt and demand a restoration of these 
sources of water supply. All land must at times lie fal- 
low. The best rest that it can enjoy is when, covered 
with timber, it returns for a time to its natural condition, 
sheltered and fertilized by the woods once more. A rea- 
sonable portion of the country should at all times be thus 
given up to its native woods if we would preserve the 
fertility of the whole. 

The practical question of today is how, as far as pos- 
sible, to undo the mistakes of the past; how to prevent 
them in the future. Agitation and discussion are neces- 
sary to call the attention of the people to the importance 
of maintaining, and to at least partially restoring, the 
primitive forests of this country. The recent policy of 
withdrawing from settlement or sale large regions upon 
the head-waters of streams, and creating forest reserva- 



ADDRESSES OF MAJOR LACEY 75 

tions, is the greatest step in the right direction that has 
thus far been taken. 

We must give up some part of our country to nature in 
order to keep the remainder for ourselves. The policy 
of most of the old states in regard to timber has been 
well summed up in six words: "To get rid of the tim- 
ber." 

With wood used for nearly every purpose from tooth- 
picks and matches up to great grain elevators and ship 
masts, the proper and reasonable requirements for man's 
necessities and luxuries involve great and constant en- 
croachment upon our forests. The old back-log of our 
forefathers has given place to the terra cotta gas-log of 
a new generation. 

With barbed wire for fencing, and the decrease of 
wooden houses in the larger towns and cities, the over- 
worked forests ought to have some rest. But the in- 
crease in population and the wear and tear upon old 
buildings make such calls for timber that, of necessity, 
a great drain upon the old forests continues. 

Our fathers cut down beautiful black walnut trees for 
rails, and our own generation has pulled up the old 
stumps of the same trees for furniture making. 

The peasants of France during the Revolution, it is 
said, would cut down two trees to make a pair of wooden 
shoes. Mark Twain, a few years ago while in Paris, 
promised to send as a wedding present to a friend the 
rarest and most expensive thing he could obtain in that 
city, and selected two small logs of firewood for that pur- 
pose, and, tying them together with red, white, and blue 
ribbon, laid them among the bric-a-brac at the wedding 
reception. 

We ask ourselves what remedy we should adopt in 
America. This is more easily asked than answered. To 
call the attention of the people to the mistakes of the past 



76 MAJOR JOHN F. LACEY 

before it is too late will lead to a conservation of groves 
and forests still in existence. The destrnction from fires 
has already attracted much attention, and rigid laws to 
prvent them have been enacted in every state. 

Groves and small wood-lots upon each farm will in 
some measure repair the loss of the more extensive 
woods, but there must be considerable area of country in 
which the forest must take control if we would preserve 
the climate, the springs, the streams, the soil, the birds, 
and the fishes. Even now the business of sinking wells 
for farm use to a depth of several hundred feet is being 
actively carried on in the West. The surface water is 
disappearing. 

Private owners cannot perform the duty of forestry 
in America. We have no rich old families who from 
generation to generation have been able to set apart large 
tracts of land for the growth of trees. We have none of 
the beautiful old ruins that grace so many parts of the 
forest-planting kingdoms of the Old World. We have no 
ruins more picturesque than a defunct bank, a bankrupt 
insurance company, or a railway in the hands of a re- 
ceiver. No baronial game preserves are set apart in 
America. Only the government lives long enough to 
plant trees extensively. The private individual is too 
constantly reminded of the fleeting character of life to 
lay out a forest for succeeding generations. The gov- 
ernment alone can hold tracts either long enough or large 
enough to effect the great climatic purpose involved in 
the preservation of our forests. A great step in this di- 
rection was taken in the laws providing for timber res- 
ervations. These reservations should be kept for use 
and growth. A thorough system of cutting off this tim- 
ber ought to be provided for at some time in the future 
when the wants of the people require that the ripened or 



ADDRESSES OF MAJOR LACEY 77 

dead trees should be utilized. But this should be done 
with such system as to preserve them as a whole. 

The people should be taught the value of these reserva- 
tions by thorough education upon the subject. Arbor 
Day celebration and the planting of fruit and timber 
trees will lead a new generation to realize that the forest 
is not the enemy of man, but his best friend — a friend 
without whom nations cannot expect to prosper. 



FORESTRY x 

Ladies of the Federation of Women's Clubs: 

In these days of federation it is natural that you should 
get together for purposes beneficial to your sex, and it is 
quite interesting to note the wide range of subjects that 
you have given for discussion. I think even Mr. Cleve- 
land would have enjoyed himself had he been present, 
though he has so recently made you the target of his 
ponderous rhetoric. 

Your organization has in contemplation not only social 
enjoyment but the advancement of our state and nation. 
The women of the world have done some of its noblest 
work and have not received due recognition for their 
deeds. Two of the greatest hymns in our language were 
written, one by a man, the other by a woman. When we 
hear "Lead, Kindly Light" sung, the figure of Cardinal 
Newman at once arises in our imagination. But when 
we hear the majestic strains of "Nearer, my God, to 
Thee, ' ' Sarah Adams is seldom thought of. 

We have many proofs of the intuition of woman. There 
have been occasional instances of boys deaf, dumb, and 
blind from their birth. But there is no record of any 
great progress made by them that I recall. But the keen 
and delicate perceptions of Laura Bridgeman, Harriet 
Prescott, and Helen Keller broke the bonds of darkness 
and silence and amazed the world by the scope of their 
learning and intelligence communicated by their sense of 
touch alone. When blind and deaf Harriet Prescott was 



i Address of John F. Lacey before the Iowa Federation of Women 's 
Clubs, Waterloo, Iowa, May 12, 1905. 



ADDRESSES OF MAJOR LACEY 79 

told that there was a God she signaled her answer, "I 
have known it for a long time, but I did not know what 
His name was." 

That you have taken up for consideration the great 
subject of forestry shows the progressive and useful pur- 
poses of your admirable organization. When the women 
of America turn their attention to any subject or object 
and manifest an earnest desire for its accomplishment 
success is assured. 

Forestry has found some difficulty in attracting atten- 
tion because of the assumption that the subject is purely 
one of sentiment. It is true that sentiment does attach 
to the preservation of our forests. But the subject is in 
the highest degree one of practical utility. It is com- 
monly true that there is an aesthetic side to all practical 
and useful subjects. 

The bloom of health on the cheek is lovely, but it is evi- 
dence of the useful as well as the beautiful. 

If there had been only the sentimental and poetic side 
of the question it would still have been worthy of our 
earnest consideration. But in forestry there is beauty 
and utility combined. 

The poet and the painter may rejoice in the contempla- 
tion of the woods. The young may revel in the inspira- 
tion of its protecting shade. But the farmer, the miller, 
the boatman, and the lumberman may now combine to 
preserve as well as to enjoy the beneficial uses of this 
great element of our national wealth. 

An old man will plant a tree that it may shelter and 
give comfort to his posterity. 

Shakespeare died at fifty-two, and never took the pains 
to collect and prepare a complete edition of his immortal 
works for the benefit of mankind. But he planted his 
beautiful mulberry tree to gladden the hearts of those 
who should come after him. Mankind has not forgiven 



80 MAJOR JOHN F. LACEY 

the man who sought evil fame and obtained lasting in- 
famy by burning Diana's temple at Ephesus. Long will 
the world remember with obloquy the reverend gentle- 
man who cut down Shakespeare's tree to spite the people 
of Stratford because he thought they had placed his taxes 
too high. When Shakespeare was poaching deer he was 
studying forestry too. 

His forest descriptions in Love's Labor Lost, As You 
Like It, Midsummer Night's Dream, and The Merry 
Wives of Windsor lead one to seek the quiet shade to find 
Tongues in the trees, books in the running brooks, 
Sermons in stones, and good in everything. 

This club represents the highest, purest, and noblest of 
all sentiments — motherhood. 

The forest is the representative of motherhood. It 
fertilizes the earth upon which it feeds. It never lives 
for itself alone. It pays usury to nature. It bears the 
fruit of the past and the seed of the future. 

A vigorous and healthy forest is the height of nature 's 
adornment. 

We have always been sensible to its beauty: we are 
now deeply concerned in its utility. The forests have al- 
ways been modest in their requirements. All they have 
asked has been standing room. Give them but place and 
they will patiently do their work. Their long arms have 
reached out for ages and gathered from the air the ele- 
ments of growth which they have added to the soil. 

Reverently they lift their heads to the sky and spread 
their supplicating arms. 

As Dr. Holmes has expressed it : 

Cedars spread their palms like holy men at prayer. 

And Alexander Smith described the trees in winter : 
The trees were gazing up into the sky 
With their bare arms stretched in prayer for the snows. 



ADDRESSES OF MAJOR LACEY 81 

Year by year they gather and store the sunshine for 
future use. The sparkling log yields back this sunshine 
on a dreary winter night. 

Americans have been the spendthrifts of the centuries. 
It is high time to call a halt and save something of our 
national resources for those who are to come after us. 

The first settlers found this continent a storehouse of 
energy and national wealth. The climate was salubrious. 
The soil was fertile. The forests spread on every hand. 
The rivers teemed with fish. Earth and air alike fur- 
nished abundant supplies of game. Later on coal oil 
and natural gas arose to the explorer, from the earth's 
great secret storehouse. Coal in vast beds was found in 
nearly every state. 

The prodigality of the sun as the source of light, heat, 
and power, is amazing. When we consider how few of 
the sun's rays strike the earth out of the almost infinite 
myriads that start out on their journey into space, we 
may well wonder if the great storehouse will be finally 
exhausted, and if a dead sun may finally cease to give 
vigor to our planetary system. 

Man has been as wasteful of his natural possessions as 
the sun of its energy. We have not been content with 
using these resources; we have wasted them as reckless 
prodigals. 

When an ancient citizen found a great treasure he re- 
ported it to his ruler, who told him to keep it and use it. 
"It is too great a sum to use," replied the finder. 
"Abuse it then," replied his master. 

This is the method which our people have applied in 
the past. The coal has been preserved in spite of man 
by the vast strata of protecting earth and stone, but we 
may even now begin to compute the time when the an- 
thracite will take its place in the museums along with the 



82 MAJOR JOHN F. LACEY 

bones of the mastodon and the eggs of the great auk and 
dodo. 

Coal oil and gas fields have been tapped with innumer- 
able wells and given over to destruction, as though the 
supply were inexhaustible. The flame from the burning 
gas well lights up the country and signalizes the waste 
and recklessness of the owner. We may still read the 
obsolete law of Maryland which benignly forbids the 
monotony of a continued bill of fare of terrapin to the 
negro slaves. The Connecticut apprentices were in like 
manner protected by statute from eating salmon more 
than twice a week. Now the salmon and the terrapin 
find places only on the bill of fare of the rich. 

It is difficult to speak of the recent almost complete ex- 
termination of the buffalo with sufficient indignation. 
The few that remain are being domesticated, and I hope 
will ultimately be seen in numerous herds on the plains 
where they were once seen by millions. It is not yet too 
late. 

Those few prophetic men who have saved a few hun- 
dred of these splendid animals for the future are en- 
titled to the thanks of all our people, and they are al- 
ready rewarded by the high commercial value that these 
animals now bear, for each buffalo is worth several hun- 
dred dollars. 

But it is to the forests that we are to direct our atten- 
tion at this time. The subjects to which I have adverted, 
however, well illustrate the question of forest preserva- 
tion and restoration. 

The creatures of the water and the air have both suf- 
fered from the devastating hand of man. In the pres- 
ervation of our birds the women of America were slow 
to act but they are now doing a great part. We have a 
wireless telegraph, a crownless queen, a thornless cactus, 



ADDRESSES OF MAJOR LACEY 83 

a seedless orange, and a coreless apple. Let us now have 
a birdless hat. 

The beautiful and fruitful service berry or juneberry 
is well nigh exterminated by the vandal-like practice of 
cutting down the trees to gather the fruit. This was a 
sin against nature. 

I remember the hills and streams of the eastern states 
in my boyhood. The old swimming holes, described by 
Whitcomb Riley, were there, a source of delight to the 
boys of forty years ago. After long absence I revisited 
some of these old streams. The trees had been felled 
and the springs had gone dry. The streams were grav- 
elly beds, as dry as Sahara, except for a few hours after 
a big rain had converted them into muddy torrents. 

Dr. English described this condition with deep pathos 
many years ago : 

The shaded nook by the running brook 
Where the children used to swim. 
Grass grows on the master's grave, Ben Bolt, 
And the spring of the brook is dry. 

This wail touches the heart in every part of the older 
states. The club women of America are moving for the 
preservation of the Big Trees of California, and it now 
looks as if Niagara Falls might yet be converted to a 
dry cliff, surrounded by all sorts of mills. 

In central and southern Italy are striking illustrations 
of the results of forest destruction. Ghastly seams show 
the track of the occasional flood. 

Surrounded as Italy is by the Mediterranean the ef- 
fects upon her climate have not been so serious as it 
would be in the interior of a continent, or as it has been 
in Asia Minor. Nature has given up the struggle with 
man in Italy. 

Hawthorne tells us that where man has carved a stone 



84 MAJOR JOHN F. LACEY 

there its reclamation from nature is permanent. No 
moss or ivy attempts to heal the scar as it does in the 
north of Europe or in the British Isles. 

Nothing is so beautiful as that product of the forest — 
a running stream. It is a living thing, always sparkling 
either in sunlight or moonlight and never growing old. 
To the poet it says : 

Men may come, and men may go, 
But I go on forever. 

The brook that Horace describes in his journey to 
Brundusium still flows in the same banks, and seems like 
a living creature, speaking of the poet of nearly two 
thousand years ago. But in the land of Holy Writ the 
brook was no such type of constancy. In Job the brook 
is described as an emblem of deceit, frozen up in winter 
and dried up in summer. 

My brethren have dealt deceitfully as a brook, and as a stream 
of brooks they pass away. . . The paths of their way are 
turned aside : they come to nothing and perish. 

In a few old churchyards on the eastern shore of Mary- 
land may be seen some of the giant oaks which were old 
when Captain John Smith anchored at Jamestown. They 
are wonderful and beautiful specimens of the primeval 
woods. They are numerous enough to make us long for 
grandeur that has passed away. 

In the mountains of Judea a few walled acres contain 
all that is left of the great cedars of Lebanon of Solo- 
mon 's day. They are but a small reminder of the glory 
of the past. 

We should not mistake mere weather for climate, but 
in recent years there have been many indications that the 
destruction of our forests has wrought a change in our 
climate. 

A few successive years of drought have tended to 
awaken interest in the rainmaker, and there is no rain- 



ADDRESSES OF MAJOR LACEY 85 

maker with better promise than the wooded slope of the 
mountain and the timbered border of the rivers. 

We have seen our Iowa lakes dry up and turned into 
farms and people well began to ponder upon the question 
as to whether we were confronted with radical and per- 
manent change of climate. 

It seems to be the united opinion of all ages and in all 
countries that rain produces forests and that forests 
produce rain. Great and injurious changes of climate 
almost certainly follow any sweeping and general de- 
struction of the woods. Trees set along the fence rows 
may by shade reduce the production of a little grass or 
grain, but such trees will do much to break the force of 
the wind and ameliorate the climate. 

All land must at times lie fallow. The best rest that it 
can enjoy is when, covered with timber, it returns for a 
time to its natural condition, sheltered and fertilized by 
the woods once more. 

A reasonable portion of the country should at all times 
be thus given up to its native woods, if we would preserve 
the fertility of the whole. 

The practical question of today is how, as far as pos- 
sible, to undo the mistakes of the past; how to prevent 
them in the future. Agitation and discussion are neces- 
sary to call the attention of the people to the importance 
of maintaining, and at least partially restoring, some of 
the primitive forests of this country. We must give up 
some part to nature in order to keep the remainder for 
ourselves. 

Earnest efforts have for the last fourteen years been 
made in behalf of forestry in its national character. As 
the result of national legislation more than 63,000,000 
acres of timbered land are now set apart in forest re- 
serves — an area almost twice as large as the state of 
Iowa. These vast reservations have been so selected as 



86 MAJOR JOHN F. LACEY 

to best preserve the water supply for purposes of irriga- 
tion in the West. And as an assurance of their continu- 
ance they have recently been transferred by act of Con- 
gress to the Department of Agriculture for their per- 
manent management and administration. These forests 
are not reserved from use but are set apart for use in 
every manner not inconsistent with their preservation. 
Only a government lives long enough to plant trees ex- 
tensively. The brevity of human life deters the individ- 
ual from a project yielding such slow returns. 

A reasonable amount of pasturing will be permitted 
but not enough to injure the young tree growth. The 
ripened and matured timber will from time to time be cut 
and removed and these great reserves will become a val- 
uable resource to our government. Under reasonable 
regulations in their shelter the remnant of our useful wild 
animal life will find protection. 

In Europe the subject of national forestry has been 
taken up with most successful results. 

Mountains had been recklessly denuded of their pro- 
tection and the valleys below had suffered from the gravel 
and sand which came down from the mountain sides. 

Terraces have been built at heavy cost and the shelter- 
ing woods again begin to resume their old duty 

The governments of the old world have found that 
these national forests are sources of income. 

There is an air of lusty life about the woods. The 
man who was blind from his birth associated the beauty 
of life with what he could feel in his sightless mind of the 
delight of the forest, and when the scales fell from his 
eyes he "saw men as trees walking." 

In this forestry movement everything has been in- 
tensely practical. 

"Better an acre in Middlesex than a principality in 



ADDRESSES OF MAJOR LACEY 87 

Utopia," may well be taken as a maxim of the mission- 
aries of forestry. 

Arbor Day may seem to be an anniversary of sentiment 
but the trees planted on that day will remain and grow 
from year to year as useful evidence of the work of the 
lovers of the trees. 

Two children on the street in London, says Punch, did 
something to offend a passerby and he threatened to call 
the policeman on the corner. 

"We are not afraid of him," they said; "that is fa- 
ther." 

But the mothers and wives are influential factors in 
all movements. A successful man said: "I have never 
quite made up my mind whether my wife has confidence 
in my ability to do things, or whether her faith is in her 
ability to make me do them. ' ' 

But at all events the things which the fair women of 
America desire to see done will be performed, and I bid 
you God-speed in your good work. 

Wise maxims have been written in behalf of the trees. 

A tree is the best gift of heaven to man. 

He that planteth a tree loveth others better than himself. 

The tree is the mother of the fountain. 

Each home should have its rooftree. To the mothers, 
the wives, and the sisters of the land is given a power to 
create a public sentiment that cannot fail. 

You have many things for the good of mankind on 
your list of good purposes. The creation of a deeper in- 
terest in the subject of forestry is by no means the least 
one of these wise objects of your organization. 



FOREST VITAL TO NATION'S WELFARE x 

That the club women of America have taken up the 
great subject of forestry shows the progress and useful 
purpose of organization among women. When the 
women of America turn their attention to any subject or 
object, and manifest an earnest desire for its accom- 
plishment, success is assured. 

Forestry has found some difficulty in attracting atten- 
tion, because of the assumption that the subject is purely 
one of sentiment. It is true that sentiment does attach 
to the preservation of our forests. But the subject is in 
the highest degree one of practical utility. It is com- 
monly true that there is an esthetic side to all practical 
and useful subjects. The poet and the painter may re- 
joice in the contemplation of the woods. But the farmer, 
the miller, the boatman, and the lumberman may now 
combine to preserve as well as to enjoy the beneficial 
uses of this great element of our national wealth. 

A vigorous and healthy forest is the height of nature's 
adornment. We have always been sensible to its beauty ; 
we are now deeply concerned in its utility. The forests 
have always been modest in their requirements. All they 
have asked has been standing room. Give them but place, 
and they will do their work patiently. Their long arms 
have reached out for ages and gathered from the air the 
elements of growth, which they have added to the soil. 

Man has been as wasteful of his natural possessions 
as the sun of its energy. We have not been content with 

i By John F. Lacey, M. G, member house committee on forest reserves. 
Chicago Tribune, June 18, 1905. 



ADDRESSES OF MAJOR LACEY 89 

using these resources ; we have wasted them as reckless 
prodigals. The coal has been preserved in spite of man 
by the vast strata of protecting earth and stone, but we 
may even now begin to compute the time when the an- 
thracite will take its place in the museum along with the 
bones of the mastodon and the eggs of the great auk and 
dodo. Coal oil and gas fields have been tapped with in- 
numerable wells and given over to destruction as if the 
supply were inexhaustible. The flame from the burning 
gas well lights up the country and signalizes the waste 
and recklessness of the owner. 

Perhaps the grandest forest now remaining on the 
earth is that in northern California, Oregon, and Wash- 
ington. I visited Oregon first in 1887, and as I got off 
the cars some one shouted to me, "Run this way quick 
and you will see Mount Hood." I presumed Mount Hood 
was a fixture, and took a few minutes' time in getting out 
to the open street where the beautiful peak glistened a 
moment in the sun and then resumed its veil of smoke 
and fog. I remained many days in the vicinity, but that 
was the first, last, and only view I ever had of that noble 
mountain. The whole country was covered by a pall of 
smoke from the burning forests. 

This was more wicked than the destruction of our for- 
ests on the Atlantic only because the great woods of the 
Pacific are finer, and for the further reason that they are 
our last. The example of the Atlantic states is one to 
profit by. It is an awful example for wisdom to shun. 
I remember the hills and streams of^the eastern states in 
my boyhood. After long absence I revisited some of 
these old streams. The trees had been felled and the 
springs had gone dry. The swimming holes were filled 
with dry sand and gravel. The club women of America 
are moving for the preservation of the big trees of Cali- 
fornia, and it now looks as if Niagara Falls might yet be 



90 MAJOR JOHN F. LACEY 

converted to a dry cliff, surrounded by all sorts of mills. 

Rain produces forests and forests produce rain. Great 
and injurious changes of climate almost certainly follow 
any sweeping and general destruction of the woods. 
Trees set along the fence rows may by shade reduce the 
production of a little grass or grain, but such trees will 
do much to break the force of the wind and ameliorate 
the climate. All land must at times lie fallow. The best 
rest that it can enjoy is when, covered with timber, it re- 
turns for a time to its natural condition, sheltered and 
fertilized by the woods once more. A reasonable portion 
of the country should at all times thus be given up to its 
native woods if we would preserve the fertility of the 
whole. 

The practical question of today is how, as far as pos- 
sible, to undo the mistakes of the past; how to prevent 
them in the future. Agitation and discussion are neces- 
sary to call the attention of the people to the importance 
of maintaining, and at least partially restoring, some of 
the primitive forests of this country. We must give up 
some part to nature in order to keep the remainder for 
ourselves. 

Earnest efforts have for the last fourteen years been 
made in behalf of forestry. As the result of national 
legislation more than 63,000,000 acres of timbered land 
are now set apart in forest reserves — an area almost 
twice as large as the state of Iowa. These vast reserva- 
tions have been so selected as to preserve the water sup- 
ply for purposes of irrigation in the West. These for- 
ests are not reserved from use, but set apart for use in 
every manner not inconsistent with their preservation. 
Only a government lives long enough to plant trees ex- 
tensively. The brevity of human life deters the indi- 
vidual from a project yielding such slow returns. 



ADDRESSES OF MAJOR LACEY 91 

Arbor Day may seem to be an anniversary of senti- 
ment, but the trees planted on that day will remain and 
grow from year to year as useful evidence of the work of 
the lovers of the trees. 



ON FORESTRY x 

For the last fourteen years I have been a member of a 
little forest congress, originally composed of fifteen mem- 
bers and increased lately to seventeen, namely the com- 
mittee on public lands. The questions that you are dis- 
cussing and will discuss during this conference here we 
have been struggling with during all this time. The 
problem of growing trees must of necessity be solved, not 
only by the private owner, but also by the state and na- 
tion. Congress has recognized the necessity of setting 
apart large areas of forest for the purpose of preserving 
streams for irrigation and for the benefit, I think, as well, 
of the public health ; because the forest is a source of pub- 
lic health. The fact has been recognized that the govern- 
ment must take some steps and take these steps in time. 
The movement has been late, but it is not too late. This 
vast area of the public domain (larger than Iowa and 
Ohio combined) that has thus been set apart, and I be- 
lieve, set apart for the American people and their chil- 
dren and their children's children forever, need no longer 
remain in the custody of that great department whose 
main business it is to dispose of the public land, to trans- 
fer it to the private individual for his home ; and, there- 
fore, for several years I personally have championed a 
measure which would remove from this great committee 
one of its most pleasing duties, but yet would transfer it 
to a department better fitted — admirably fitted for the 
future care and preservation of this great domain. And 

i Impromptu address by Hon. John Lacey, member of Congress from 
Iowa, at the American Forest Congress (p. 403-409), Washington, D. C, 
January 2-6, 1905. 



ADDRESSES OF MAJOR LACEY 93 

it is not news to you, and yet it is worthy of record here, 
that this measure had passed the House of Representa- 
tives and is now pending in the Senate of the United 
States ; and your judgment and influence will go far, no 
doubt, to secure its passage through that wise and great 
though somewhat slow-moving body. We have at the 
head of the Department of Agriculture the great head of 
forestry. I, perhaps, do not mean the gentlemen that you 
are all thinking of. It is not my dear young friend, Mr. 
Pinchot, but the old man, who comes from the prairie 
state of Iowa, a state whose chief forests consisted of 
hazel brush in the days when the secretary of agriculture 
first settled in his magnificent domain. And I might say 
to you that so far as the state is concerned, it is quite 
too rich to use much of it for forestry. They can hardly 
afford it. With the land at one hundred dollars an acre, 
to plant out in trees, the crop of which will be harvested 
seventy-five years from now, is almost too expensive even 
for a nation to undertake, so Iowa will never be a forest 
producing state. The head of this department will be 
succeeded some day — I hope a long time in the future — 
by some man of equally comprehensive grasp and an 
equally prophetic view of the future. The department 
has come to stay, and it is a department that may look far 
into the future and do that for the nation and for the 
people which the private individual, or even the state, is 
not adequate to accomplish. And, therefore, it is well 
that when these reservations have finally been delimited 
and their outlines fixed, that they should be transferred, 
not to a department whose business it is to pass the title 
away to individuals but to a department that will hold 
on to this land, that will turn it over to succeeding admin- 
istrations, and that will preserve the sources of the water 
supply of the country in the West, whose future is entire- 
ly dependent upon the successful operation of irrigation. 



94 MAJOR JOHN F. LACEY 

And that is why, my friends, this transfer to a different 
department is a matter now of necessity when this vast 
domain of sixty-two or sixty-three million acres shall 
have been selected for the purpose- 
There is another reason for the transfer. I referred a 
moment ago to my young friend, Mr. Pinchot, who is the 
chief forester of the Department of Agriculture. It has 
been an anomaly in our legislation that the department of 
the government having charge of the forests had none of 
the skilled foresters of the United States in its employ, 
and that the department that did not own a tree anywhere 
was surrounded by the best corps of foresters in the 
world. The mountain could not come to Mahomet, and so 
Mahomet is going to the mountain. The department is to 
be transferred — the service transferred — to that de- 
partment that is so notably fitted and so organized as to 
take the permanent care of this magnificent, this wonder- 
ful domain. I was born in the woods of Virginia. I 
moved (thank God) to the prairies, and one of the most 
unpleasant things of my subsequent life was to return to 
the woods of Virginia, now West Virginia, to find that the 
old streams — "the old swimmin' holes" — as Whitcomb 
Riley calls them, the holes we used to swim in and where 
we caught so many fish, are now simply gravelly roads. 
They are highways as dry, as arid, as one of the deserts 
of Arizona or New Mexico — nothing but beds of gravel. 
And why is it? Because the trees have been cut down 
and the springs that were the children of the forest, have 
dried up, and instead of a slow running brook digging out 
holes here and there, clear as crystal and full of water, we 
have simply an increased torrent after each storm, carry- 
ing the pebbles and sand from the hills, washing them 
down and destroying the old brooks. 

Now this is one of the unpleasant features of the de- 
nuded timber lands of the eastern states. I see here be- 



ADDRESSES OF MAJOR LACEY 95 

fore me representatives from every state and territory 
in the Union, because this question has become a national 
one and has gone into the homes of the people. It is not 
too late to save some of the great Appalachian forests of 
North and South Carolina. It is not too late to save the 
valleys of many of the eastern states from that destruc- 
tion which followed the denudation of the forests of 
France when the hilltops were carried down into the val- 
leys and the rich alluvial plains absolutely buried with 
sand and gravel. It is not yet too late, although many a 
fertile field has been destroyed. 

I can look at this from an impartial standpoint, without 
prejudice, living in a country that has no forests, that 
never had them, that never will have any great forests ; 
where we have a climate in which there is always rain 
enough to grow a crop and drought enough to dry it for 
harvest ; where all we need in the world is to be let alone. 

I did not come here to talk to you this morning. I sat 
down in the audience simply because I wanted to touch 
elbows with those who are carrying this crusade in favor 
of the forests into every part of the United States ; but I 
am glad to have this opportunity to look these earnest 
people in the face and to bid them God-speed and good 
cheer. There is no nation in the world that has been so 
extravagant, that has been such a spendthrift of its nat- 
ural resources as the American nation. We tap a gas 
field, set it on fire and advertise for everybody to come 
and see it burn up — a gas field that it took countless mil- 
lions of ages to store under the cap of a rock that covers 
it — and yet in a few years it is destroyed, and the fac- 
tories that were built over it with the understanding that 
an everlasting source of supply existed underneath, find 
themselves once more shipping coal from hundreds of 
miles away in order to supply their furnaces. The same 
is true with oil ; the same with the beasts of the forests 



96 MAJOR JOHN F. LACEY 

and the birds of the air. People destroy them with a 
wantonness that almost looks like malignity ; and all these 
natural resources of the great United States of America 
are involved, either directly or indirectly in the questions 
that you are going to discuss. While preserving the for- 
ests you will preserve the animals that roam therein; 
while preserving the forests you will give shelter to the 
birds of the air that make their nests therein. It is too 
late to save the wild pigeon, perhaps. The countless mil- 
lions that used to break down the woods by their weight 
have disappeared, and the advent of a dozen wild pigeons 
in the state of New York is taken up by the Associated 
Press and published far and wide as a wonderful thing: 
"A dozen wild pigeons were seen in western New York 
day before yesterday." And yet, within the lifetime of 
my young friend Pinchot, and I refer to him because I 
look to him for the future of the forests, in the lifetime of 
even the youngest members present here, this magnificent 
bird has practically disappeared from the face of the 
earth. I know my friend, the secretary of agriculture, 
will not fully agree with me upon the importance of the 
preservation of the buffalo, but I expect some day to get 
him to entirely agree with me. 

This is a day of progress. It is not very long ago that 
men rejoiced at the destruction of the buffalo, because it 
opened the way for the white man in the West. We took 
up the subject in Congress some years ago, while a few 
remains of this magnificent animal were still upon the 
earth. It was my good luck to secure a small appropria- 
tion from our economical chairman of the committee on 
appropriations — not a very sentimental man, but one of 
the most practical men on earth — Uncle Joe Cannon — a 
small appropriation of $15,000 to restore a herd of bison 
to the Yellowstone Park. Four hundred of these crea- 
tures were enclosed in the area that was reserved when 



ADDRESSES OF MAJOR LACEY 97 

this land was set apart as a pleasure ground for the na- 
tion. Those four hundred have gradually been killed for 
their heads and for their pelts, and the calves have been 
destroyed by the mountain lions and by the severity of 
the winters, until finally only twenty-three were the sorry 
remains of that splendid herd that was set apart for the 
nation in the Yellowstone ; and the small appropriation of 
$15,000 was made. Eighteen animals were purchased, 
part of them from the Flathead herd. The Flathead In- 
dians, with more prudence than their white brethren had 
shown, saved thirty-five calves a good many years ago, 
out of the dying herd, and made them their private prop- 
erty. And that little herd of thirty-five increased until 
there were nearly three hundred of them. And this herd 
now in the Yellowstone was selected mainly from the Flat- 
head herd because they were reared in an altitude some- 
thing like that in which the new herd was to live. To this 
herd were added animals from Texas — from the Good- 
night herd — and from Corbin's New Hampshire herd — 
so as to mingle the blood normally in this new herd as the 
blood of the nations has been mingled in the United States 
of America. This is the way to produce a race, to mix 
them and get the best you can from everywhere. And so, 
starting upon the proposition of building once more a 
herd in the Yellowstone, that little herd from eighteen has 
has grown to thirty-nine, and we have hopes of sixteen 
more in the spring. 

Now I only speak about this, my friends, because it is a 
kindred question. It is one of the things that grows out 
of the agitation of forestry. A man or a woman who pre- 
serves a tree in a practical way will preserve the things 
that that tree shelters and produces and that are useful 
to man. Again, I wish to bid you God-speed, and I hope 
you will carry with you to every part of the United States 
the enthusiasm which you will generate here — the en- 



98 MAJOR JOHN F. LACEY 

thusiasni which you bring here and which you will con- 
vey to one another — and that you will be a mighty band 
of missionaries all the way from Portland, Maine, to Port- 
land, Oregon. 



HOMESTEADS IN FOREST RESERVES l 

In the earliest work on the public lands committee in 
which the writer participated in the 51st Congress, was 
the preparation of the act of 1891, which took the first 
step towards the inauguration of a national system of 
forest reserves. Successive steps have been taken under 
this statute by the designation of different reserves, from 
time to time. Some of the early reserves were not ju- 
diciously bounded and much territory unsuited for for- 
estry purposes was included, and many settlers found 
themselves isolated as hermits, by the fact that no neigh- 
bors could come in. 

These cases of individual hardship led to the passage 
of the "lieu land law" which was afterwards repealed 
because of the many abuses that grew up under its ad- 
ministration. An amendment was also enacted author- 
izing the President to change boundaries in his discre- 
tion. 

Like all great movements, the forest reserve had small 
beginnings, but its growth has been steady and the policy 
which was first bitterly resisted has become very popular. 
The land department of the government has for a good 
many years had charge of the sale of the public domain 
and has been specially organized for the purpose of facil- 
itating the transfer of the nation's land to the hands of 
settlers. The forest reservations are set apart for per- 
manent public use, and the writer introduced a bill to 

i By John F. Lacey, M. C, of Iowa, chairman of committee on the pub- 
lic lands, House of Representatives. 



100 MAJOR JOHN F. LACEY 

transfer the management of these permanent reserves to 
the Department of Agriculture. 

In a later Congress, a bill was introduced, for the same 
purpose, by Mr. Mondell, and it has become a law. 

The area set apart for these national forests has stead- 
ily increased until they now contain more than one hun- 
dred millions of acres, about equal to the combined states 
of Iowa and Missouri. 

Two of these reserves — the Wichita in Oklahoma and 
the Grand Canyon in Arizona — have also been declared 
by law to be refuges for game, and hunting has been pro- 
hibited in them. No doubt the wild life in some of the 
other reserves will also enjoy the immunity of a per- 
manently closed season by an additional law, and the 
overflow of game from the reserves will aid in restocking 
the lands beyond their boundaries. 

It is too early to state certainly what will be the effect 
of this feature of forestry administration, but I believe 
it will meet with universal favor as an adjunct to the en- 
tire forestry policy. This additional use will in no wise 
interfere with the other purposes of the reserve. 

President Roosevelt has very heartily endorsed this 
policy in more than one of his messages to Congress. 

Wyoming did not wait for national action along this 
line but by state law declared a permanent closed season 
in the reserves adjacent to the Yellowstone National 
Park. 

In setting aside a hundred millions of acres of land for 
forestry, it was impossible to avoid including consider- 
able tracts of land much more useful for agriculture than 
for timber raising. Commissioner W. A. Richards of the 
General Land Office has earnestly urged the passage of a 
bill by which these tracts could be selected, surveyed, 
and opened to settlement under such restrictions and 



ADDRESSES OF MAJOR LACEY 101 

regulations as will protect the adjacent reserves for their 
legitimate uses. 

The writer of this article introduced bills for that pur- 
pose in several Congresses but without success until in 
the first session of the 59th Congress the bill received 
the favorable action of both houses and has now become a 
law. It is too early to say how satisfactory and success- 
ful this new feature of the law will prove. 

Much will depend upon the care and skill used in se- 
lecting and setting apart the areas for such homestead 
settlement. In southern California there was some ap- 
prehension that the law might impair the utility of the 
reserves and increase the danger from fires and two of 
the congressional districts of that state were excluded 
from its operation at the instance of the representatives 
of the districts. There are here and there in the reserves 
beautiful, but irregular, valleys, admirably adapted to 
use as homes for the people. Under this law the land 
may be platted by irregular metes and bounds and thrown 
open to homestead entry. 

These settlers will find many advantages in the use of 
the surrounding forests. It is the wise purpose of the 
forest reserve laws to keep these reserves for the use 
and benefit of the people. Reasonable use for pasturage 
is already permitted under the regulations and control 
of the Department of Agriculture. This use should be 
so restricted that the trees may not be injured by live 
stock and preference should be given for a reasonable 
number of cattle for homesteaders' use. 

Care should be exercised to avoid the introduction of 
so large a number of residents as might impair the uses 
for which these forests have been dedicated; but this is 
left with the Department and a discretion is given suffi- 
cient to prevent such injury. 



102 MAJOR JOHN F. LACEY 

The preservation of the forests from fires, the preven- 
tion of erosion of the mountain by floods, the maintenance 
of the natural springs and the conservation of the snows, 
are the primary purposes of these reservations and the 
introduction of homestead settlers should be limited to 
those tracts which are suitable for agriculture. 

Because of the eager demand for homes it seemed un- 
just to withhold these tracts of tillable land from the use 
of the farmers and cattle growers. 

The best legislation arises from evolution along well 
defined lines, with modifications to meet conditions as 
time develops or brings them to attention, and this step 
in the progress of intelligent forestry is a wise and bene- 
ficial one. Many a happy home will be established in the 
people's great forests. 

In the Black Hills a considerable number of settlers 
had already taken land under the placer mining law and 
carved out for themselves irregular claims of the form 
contemplated in this new homestead law. Whilst the 
land was mineral the values were so low that the claims 
were more useful for agriculture than for mining pur- 
poses, and the settlers have been raising crops and pas- 
turing their herds in these mountains. 

The Black Hills settlers can be readily provided for 
under this new law and will be given an immediate object 
lesson for use in opening up similar tracts in other re- 
serves. The forest reserves have come late into our na- 
tional life but they have come in time to do incalculable 
good and they have come to stay. 

This modification of the law is not a hurried experi- 
ment but is the fruit of long consideration and deliberate 
action by Congress and I confidently predict that it will 
become a permanent feature of the established policy of 
saving the forests for the common weal. 



FORESTRY — THE TREE IS THE MOTHER OF 

THE FOUNTAIN — A TREE IS THE BEST 

GIFT OF HEAVEN TO MAN 1 

The question of a system of forest reserves in this 
country is of comparatively recent origin, and interest in 
it has become general. There are two propositions in- 
volved in this bill. The first is that the reserves which 
have heretofore been created and which may hereafter 
be set apart shall be transferred from time to time for 
administration to the Department of Agriculture. The 
bill however provides that this shall not be done until the 
permanent boundaries of each of these reservations shall 
be established, which permanent delimitation of the 
boundaries shall precede the transfer of each reserve. 
In the end the result will be that all of the forest reserves 
will be transferred to the Department of Agriculture for 
administration. We have now a Bureau of Forestry in 
the Department of Agriculture. That bureau has in its 
employ practically all the scientific foresters in the Unit- 
ed States. We have a division of forestry in the land 
office, but the land office, of course, has not been specially 
fitted for this scientific work. The great purpose of the 
land office has been to survey and dispose of the public 
lands, not to take care and preserve them, but to dispose 
of them to private individuals. So that by the very na- 
ture of the organization of the two departments, the per- 
manent administration and permanent care of the forests 

1 Speech of Hon. John F. Lacey, of Iowa, in the House of Bepresenta- 
tives, Monday, June 9, 1902. 



104 MAJOR JOHN F. LACEY 

would more properly be lodged in the Department of 
Agriculture. 

In other words, forestry is tree cultivation upon a large 
scale and covering long periods of time, for which the life 
of an individual would be inadequate. France and Ger- 
many have been compelled by force of necessity to adopt 
a forestry system. Spain, too, suffering from drought 
and the destruction of her water courses, has adopted such 
a system. The state of New York has been compelled 
to buy the Adirondacks, spending $4,000,000 in order to 
save the headwaters of the Hudson. These forests upon 
the tops of the mountains in the Far West serve to pro- 
tect the snow and fountain heads of the streams and to 
make irrigation practical and practicable. We have upon 
the calendar, and will no doubt within a few days con- 
sider, a bill with reference to the irrigation of arid lands 
in the West. Now, it makes no difference whether the 
future irrigation shall be controlled by private parties or 
by the states or by the United States — whichever course 
is taken it is essential that the sources of the streams 
should be preserved. 

The Department of Agriculture has a scientific bureau 
that has been organized, not for the purpose of prevent- 
ing the use of the trees on our public lands, but to provide 
for their use so that they may be cut down from time to 
time as they may be needed by settlers ; and at the same 
time proper measures will be used to prevent fires and 
to maintain and restore these forests, as in Germany they 
are maintaining and preserving these forests, while at 
the same time they are realizing from year to year the 
benefits of marketing the ripened or matured trees. 

In France they have found that by the destruction of 
the forests the heavy rains have resulted in washing 
down the soil on the sides of the mountains and destroy- 
ing the valleys beneath, and at an expense of millions of 



ADDRESSES OP MAJOR LACEY 105 

francs the French government is restoring the forests on 
the mountain slopes. The people of the United States 
have wakened up to the necessity of preserving at least a 
portion of our woods, to the end that the balance of our 
land may be successfully tilled. 

I have never been a "State's rights man," but I have 
nevertheless always had the highest regard for the rights 
of the states. In the drafting of this bill I have endeav- 
ored to so prepare its limits as to always have due re- 
gard for the wishes as well as the rights of the state, that 
no steps like those now proposed should be taken by the 
government as to its own property under the constitu- 
tional rights reserved to it without first asking for the 
consent of that state through its governor. It is not 
necessary, but I think it prudent to ask such consent. 

Now, Mr. Chairman, as to the necessity of a law of this 
kind. Our ancestors were all killers. Prehistoric man 
with his club and his stone weapons no doubt extermin- 
ated the mammoth. If these cruel forefathers of ours 
had owned breech-loaders the progenitors of the horse, 
the cow, the sheep, and the ox would have disappeared 
from the earth long before domestication. The boy of 
today is as bloody-minded as his naked forefather, and 
begins to slay the birds and beasts as soon as he can hold 
a stone in his chubby hands. 

From the days of the troglodyte the unequal contest 
has raged. Stone, bronze, iron, hawking, and gunpowder 
were added to man's power to destroy. But now, with 
the breech-loader and later improved weapons, man has 
become omnidestructive. He goes 500 miles for a day's 
shooting or half way around the world for a brief hunt- 
ing and fishing trip. 

The immensity of man's power to slay imposes great 
responsibilities. 

We are threatened with the probable extinction of many 



106 MAJOR JOHN F. LACEY 

varieties of birds and beasts. A birdless world would be 
a dreary place to live in and a birdless air would be unfit 
to breathe. 

The wild pigeon has gone to join the great auk and the 
dodo in the realm of obliteration. 

We may well pause and consider the situation with 
which we are confronted. 

I read the other day of a hunt in the South where two 
prominent gentlemen from New York killed 1,600 ducks 
in two days, and generously gave them away to show that 
they were not mere ordinary pot hunters. 

These sanguinary sportsmen should have rather hired 
out or volunteered to stick pigs for two days for the meat 
packers, where they might have glutted their appetite 
for gore in a more creditable way. The reckless, impro- 
vident, and indiscriminate slaughter of our fish in the riv- 
ers and the seas are only illustrations of that large waste 
of our natural resources that is going on in all directions. 
The natural gas was once worshiped as something super- 
natural. Now it is used for the most practical of all 
purposes. It has been recklessly wasted as though it had 
been infinite in quantity, and the depleted fields show the 
results of our extravagance. 

Oil and forests have been extravagantly exploited in 
the same way. 

Take the state of Texas, where a few months ago we 
were having many " gushers," supplying oil each at the 
rate of 74,000 barrels a day, but now, the newspapers tell 
us, the oil has ceased to flow. But experience shows that 
all these resources are limited. 

Oil in Texas may long be pumped, but vast as the sup- 
ply is it is exhaustible. 

Since I have been in public life I have devoted some 
part of my time to the subject of the conservation and 



ADDRESSES OF MAJOR LACEY 107 

restoration of our natural resources. This question nat- 
urally arises in connection with our public domain. 

It is a shocking thing to see the people of the Pacific 
Coast wantonly engaged in making their opulent salmon 
streams as desolate and barren as the once prolific Con- 
necticut now is. 

Mankind must conserve the resources of nature. 

When our people were cutting one another's throats 
during the war of 1861 to 1865, game in the South became 
abundant, for men had ceased to hunt anything but hu- 
man kind, but when peace came the war against the crea- 
tures of the field and forest was again renewed and waged 
with unremitting zeal. 

It is no credit to mankind that animal life is more 
abundant today around the inaccessible poles than any- 
where else upon the planet. 

Fish in the inhospitable Hudson Bay region are so 
plentiful that they could not furnish names for them all, 
and, like the statue to the unknown god at Athens, one of 
these Canadian fishes was called the "inconnu" or the 
'.' unknown" fish. 

The proposed railway to Hudson Bay will change all 
this. The slaughter will grow furious when "civiliza- 
tion" invades this breeding ground of the Far North. 

Some one must in these days teach the science of how 
not to kill. 

There are 46,000,000 acres of our forests now preserved 
to keep up the supply of water for our rivers. This a 
great step in the direction of husbanding nature's re- 
sources. 

Farseeing and practical men saw that a part of the 
forests must be saved or the remainder of the land would 
become a desert, and the forest reserves were established 
against the protests of the unthinking. 



108 MAJOR JOHN F. LACEY 

A few of the primeval woods remain as reminders of 
the past. A Hibernian friend, a genial ex-congressman 
from New York, once defined a virgin forest as ' ' a place 
where the hand of man has never yet set his foot. ' ' This 
incident shows that the Irish bull, at least, is not yet 
extinct. 

Our forestry laws have enabled us to save some of these 
wholesome and delightful retreats. 

These woods, thus set apart as the sources of water 
supply, may be made the city of refuge for the feeble 
remnant of the mighty throng of animal life that once 
filled this continent. 

We have seen the buffalo so nearly exterminated that 
only about 500 living specimens today may be found in 
the whole world. 

Their domestication was as practicable as that of the 
reindeer, the horse, or the cow. 

The buffalo was the noblest of all the wild animals that 
inhabited this continent when America was discovered. 

The ages in which this wonderful creature was evolved 
into his peculiar form and size are inconceivable in dura- 
tion. How admirably he was adapted to life upon the 
western plains. When he had fed he traveled with his 
fellows in long lines, single file, to the favorite watering 
place. The herd did not spread abroad and trample down 
and destroy the grass in such a journey, but in long and 
narrow trails the journey was made, and when the drink- 
ing place was reached and thirst was sated the buffalo 
never defiled the pool in which he drank. 

He was a gentleman among beasts, just as the game hog 
is a beast among gentlemen. 

Perhaps out of these scanty remains new herds may 
again be produced. 

We have preserved the wild turkey, which Benjamin 




White Fir (Abies concolor). Mountains of Utah. 
(L. II. Pammel.) 



ADDRESSES OF MAJOR LACEY 109 

Franklin proposed should be adopted instead of the 
American eagle as our national emblem. 

The turkey has been saved; the buffalo ought also to 
have been domesticated. A few of the buffalos still re- 
main. This bill makes provision by which they may have 
the opportunity of propagating them within a portion of 
the forest reserves. 

Public sentiment is growing in favor of the conserva- 
tion of our resources. It is timely as to some things. 
It is far too late as to others. 

There are these two propositions involved in this bill : 
First, to allow the Bureau of Forestry in the Department 
of Agriculture to take charge of that extended farming 
of the forests which only the government can manage; 
second, that in a moderate degree, and within the desires 
of the people of the locality in which the forests are lo- 
cated, game and fish preserves may be established for the 
benefit of the surrounding country. 

After a forest reserve is created the control is entirely 
with the Department of Agriculture, if the boundaries 
have been finally and definitely located ; or if not, it is with 
the Department of the Interior until these boundaries 
shall have been fully established ; but the consent of the 
governor shall first be had before we enlarge the scope of 
any particular reserve to include game preservation as 
well, and with the amendment to which the gentleman 
refers it provides that hereafter they can not be enlarged 
or created without the consent of the governor of the 
state. That is a different proposition and one that I per- 
sonally approve. 

I would like to answer my friend, because it is a ques- 
tion that should be answered. We have 46,000,000 acres 
of forest reserves created under existing laws, created 
without the consent of any governor. Now the power of 



110 MAJOR JOHN F. LACEY 

the government in these reservations is limited only by 
the constitution. 

Attorney-General Knox, one of the clearest-headed 
lawyers that has ever administered the Department of 
Justice, has recently considered the subjects of the na- 
tional power over the public lands and forest reserves, 
and his opinion is to the effect that Congress can, even 
within the limits of a state, legislate and make regulations 
by which animal life may be protected in the people's 
forests. This opinion of the attorney-general will be a 
landmark in the history of protective legislation, for as 
Congress is given the power, it should not and will not 
fail to exercise it. 

As stated in the opinion of the attorney general, we 
need not ask the governor or any legislature of any state 
what we will do in those reservations. But we make a 
concession here. We give the President power to enlarge 
the existing purposes of these reservations, so as to make 
some of them fish and game preserves as well, but not to 
do this unless the governor of the state shall consent. 
After that consent has been given this control of the na- 
tional government will be exercised, but not until then. 
When the gentleman stated that we were turning over the 
control to the governor of a state, he does not compre- 
hend the scope of the bill, or perhaps has been unfortun- 
ate in his expression. 

Now let me answer the other part of the gentleman's 
question, because it was a dual question. Under exist- 
ing laws the President of the United States can take any 
public forest land in the United States and create a forest 
reserve out of it. The majority of the committee on pub- 
lic lands, recognizing the fact that some of these bound- 
aries had been very unsatisfactory, and that friction had 
thereby arisen in some of the states in regard to forest 
boundaries, have suggested the propriety of placing the 



• ADDRESSES OF MAJOR LACEY 111 

same limitation as to the creation of reserves hereafter 
upon the President, so that in making future additions to 
the existing 46,000,000 acres the consent of the governor 
of the state in which the reservation was located must be 
given ; but the reserve would not be under the control of 
the governor. 

I endeavored to show that as a matter of administra- 
tion, as to the propagation of trees, as to their preserva- 
tion, and as to all these various matters of administration 
of forestry the Department of Agriculture is better fitted 
by the nature and purpose of its organization than any 
other department of this government. In other words, 
we are entering upon a great system of what might be 
called tree farming — raising timber for future genera- 
tions; and the department that has the looking after the 
agriculture of the country, the department that protects 
especially the interests of the farmer, is better capable of 
handling this branch of the administration of these re- 
serves than any other department. The protection of the 
forests is essential to the farmer. 

Now, I remember when I was a little boy, going out in 
the hills of my native state to gather service berries, I 
was surprised to see the gentleman in charge of the party 
of children took an ax along. I soon found after we got 
into the woods what the ax was for. It was to cut down 
the trees in order to gather the berries. We cut the trees 
down and gathered the fruit. And I am credibly inform- 
ed that there never have been any berries in that forest 
since. Every gentleman here who has passed middle life 
will recollect just such an offense against nature as that. 

Now, when our fathers landed on these shores, they 
had the idea that the forest was the enemy of mankind. 
There was in the mind of the white man the idea that 
there were two special duties to be performed — one to 
cut down the trees and the other to kill the aborigines. 



112 MAJOR JOHN F. LACEY 

The trees were useful to the aborigines and are now 
useful to us. They should be preserved for use and not 
from use. And aborigines that remain are becoming civ- 
ilized ; and we are trying to take care of them also. And 
we have made the discovery that the forests can not be 
destroyed as a whole without changing the climate of the 
country itself ; and therefore in that high sense of taking 
care of the farmer all over the United States it is neces- 
sary to take care of the forests of the United States, 

Not a single additional employee will be required. The 
gentleman from Arkansas has prepared an amendment, 
which I shall support, providing that as fast as it be- 
comes proper to transfer a reserve from the custody of 
the Department of the Interior to the Department of Agri- 
culture a corresponding number of the force of the in- 
terior department shall be transferred. In other words, 
no more employees will be required than at present. We 
have these two bureaus, or rather we have a division and 
a bureau, and we have the employees in both. The same 
amount of forest land will exist after any portion is 
transferred to the Department of Agriculture, and you 
simply transfer the men having it in charge. For in- 
stance, there are a certain number of custodians of the 
Grand Canyon Reserve of Arizona, and the San Francis- 
co Forest Reserve. Now, if those two reserves are trans- 
ferred to the Department of Agriculture the employees 
will also be transferred, and the expense will be precisely 
the same as if it were handled by the Department of the 
Interior. It makes no change whatever. 

There are two duties to perform in regard to forest re- 
serves. There are duties in relation to private individ- 
uals who have interests in public lands. Those matters 
are for the land department. Matters from the land de- 
partment may be transferred by mandamus to the courts. 
If a patent is issued, a direct proceeding may be brought 



ADDRESSES OF MAJOR LACEY 113 

in chancery to compel the patentee to become a trustee for 
the benefit of the real equitable owner of the property. 
Now, all those matters are matters of a legal nature, and 
are controlled by the land department as a court. The 
control of the forest reserves, taking care of timber, and 
all that, has nothing whatever to do with a proposition 
of this kind. 

The land department of the government has charge, ex- 
clusive of Alaska, of 600,000,000 acres of land — a pretty 
big farm. That includes the minerals; it includes the 
forest reserves and the national parks ; that includes all 
of the land in which the government of the United States 
had and retains the original title. Now, the work in re- 
gard to this business is divided up. We have a forestry 
division of the land office. That forestry division has 
nothing whatever to do with these questions of title; all 
questions of title are disposed of in other divisions of the 
land office. We have another division of the land office 
that has charge of the minerals and another one that has 
charge of patents, and so on. 

The work is all thoroughly divided, and the control of 
the forestry today by the land office is in a separate divi- 
sion, just as separate as though it belonged to the Depart- 
ment of Agriculture, and there is no conflict, either neces- 
sary or possible, between the settling of private rights or 
the rights between the public and a private individual as 
to a quarter section of land or a mine in a forest reserve 
and the question of administering and caring for the tim- 
ber that stands on the undisputed part of that forest re- 
serve. We have today three different jurisdictions — the 
geological survey, that surveys the boundaries ; the fores- 
try division of the land office, that handles the timber and 
does the work that is proposed to be done under this bill, 
and, third, we have the Bureau of Forestry in the Depart- 
ment of Agriculture, with a full and complete force capa- 



114 MAJOR JOHN F. LACEY 

ble of relieving the Department of the Interior of a con- 
siderable portion of this work ; and thus the bill is in the 
interests of economy, and would result in a reduction of 
the force instead of necessitating its enlargement. 

There are a very few animals to which this provision 
could be made applicable. There are today perhaps 100 
of a certain variety of elk in the southern end of the San 
Joaquin Valley, only one body of them in the world. The 
proposition has been made to gather them up and put 
them in a forest reserve. They are the only remaining 
ones of their species. A part of the Allard herd of buf- 
faloes would probably be put upon some one of these res- 
ervations. Now, so far as I know, the only animals any- 
where in the United States that can thus be transferred 
are those two particular herds, and possibly one or two 
other buffalo herds. There are perhaps three or four 
small buffalo herds that could thus be transferred, and 
the right is given here, without asking the governor 
whether he consents to this or not, to put these little herds 
into either one of the reservations recommended in the 
bill. If my friend thinks that there ought to be some 
further limitation put upon this protection, I am perfect- 
ly willing that it shall be done. I will have no objection 
to it, because there is no purpose such as he imagines 
might be concealed in this section of the bill, and when we 
come down to this particular section I shall be glad for 
him to call attention to it, and if any amendment can be 
made that is necessary it can be done. 

It is well that somebody should see nothing but evil in 
appropriations. There never was a train yet that did not 
have a brake on it. There must be a brake, but you can 
not run the train with a brake alone — not successfully. 
While I commend my friend generally, here in this case 
he is exercising his judgment without giving attention to 
the real purpose of the bill. From his committee have 



ADDRESSES OF MAJOR LACEY 115 

come in bills on subjects that I did not agree with him 
upon that appropriated more money in a single year than 
this whole Bureau of Forestry would consume in ten 
years ; but it was his judgment and the House followed it, 
and I accepted his judgment. But when it comes to mat- 
ters of legislation we have the President of the United 
States asking for this bill in his annual message and we 
have the Department of the Interior approving and asking 
for it. We have a bill that has for its purpose the preser- 
vation and conservation and administration of our forests. 

Whatever expense may attend this work will be con- 
tributed by the American people and appropriated by the 
Congress of the United States, and the revenues from 
the forests will finally more than pay the expenses. These 
forest reserves will become an asset instead of a liability. 
Today the administration of forestry in the Philippine 
Islands is one of the principal sources of revenue there, 
and that forestry work is administered under the Spanish 
law, which has been reenacted, with some modifications, 
by the Philippine Commission. Under prudent and prop- 
er management our forests will become sources of rev- 
enue over and above all possible expense in their man- 
agement. 

Without these forests in our western mountains the 
desolation of the mountains of Palestine and southern 
Italy will be soon duplicated in the United States. We 
must learn from the mistakes of others. North Carolina 
is asking to have her hills again restored to a forest state, 
so as to bless and fertilize the valleys below. Let us 
move in time in the arid regions of our western domain. 



GRAZING PRIVILEGES ON THE PUBLIC LANDS 
FOR HOMESTEADERS AND SMALL LAND- 
HOLDERS — PASTORAL HOMESTEADS * 

"All flesh is grass and all the goodliness thereof as a 
flower of the field. ' ' Isaiah xl, 6. ' ' The grass withereth, 
the flower fadeth because the spirit of the Lord bloweth 
upon it; surely the people is grass." Isaiah xl, 7. 
Man's existence depends almost wholly, either directly 
or indirectly, upon the grasses in their various forms. 
Voltaire 's saying is often quoted : ' ' Whoever makes two 
blades of grass to grow where only one grew before ren- 
ders a service to the state," and this statement is no 
more true than that the public policy which makes one 
blade of grass grow where two grew before should be 
reversed. 

We have now 600,000,000 acres of the public domain, 
without taking into account the territory of Alaska. Of 
this vast region a very large portion is only suitable for 
pasturage, 46,000,000 acres have been set apart as forest 
reserves, 5,300,000 acres as national parks, a large area 
is embraced within the limits of mountain ranges above 
the timber line — but after all there remains an empire 
which is suitable only for pasturage. While a consider- 
able area is yet to be put under cultivation by proper 
systems of irrigation, the land that would only be fit for 
grass would still amount to hundreds of millions of acres. 
How to utilize this best for our great and growing popu- 
lation is a problem well worthy of the consideration of the 

i Speech of Hon. John F. Laeey, of Iowa, in the House of Bepresenta- 
tives, Friday, June 13, 1902. 



ADDRESSES OF MAJOR LACEY 117 

Congress of the United States. It is one, too, that is full 
of difficulty. 

Prejudices are to be encountered, abuses have to be 
corrected, and it is high time that the people who are 
living in this great territory should seriously take the 
subject under consideration. They have begun to do so, 
but yet there is much difference of opinion as to what 
remedy, if any, should be adopted and applied. The 
purpose of my remarks today is to discuss the best attain- 
able remedy for present evils — the best possible under 
existing circumstances — and I think I fully realize the 
difficulty of framing a law dealing with this question. 
The home is the base of everything, and if we start re- 
forms on this subject with the home as the foundation 
the structure will be safe. 

In examining this question and preparing a bill upon 
it the home seeker and actual settler is the man for whom 
we should exercise our first concern. The actual settler 
is the strength of a new state. The nomadic herder who 
drifts with his flocks from state to state, paying taxes no- 
where and having no care for the future of the state, 
should be accorded no rights which will conflict with the 
local interests of the community or which will deter the 
actual settlers from taking up permanent homes. 

The protection of the forests has no longer much op- 
position. By saving the forests we preserve the streams. 
The benefits of the restoration of the herbage of the plains 
are more direct. Grazing is even more important than 
irrigation. The nakedness of the plains should be clothed 
with grass and the mountains with trees. 

In reading the early history of the United States, es- 
pecially of the Far "West, the mention of abundance of 
grasses suitable for grazing will always strike the atten- 
tion of the reader. It is interesting to take the story of 
Lewis and Clark's expedition, or the journals of the 



118 MAJOR JOHN F. LACEY 

pathfinder, General Fremont, in his journey across the 
continent in the earlier days, and follow their descriptions 
of the abundance of animal life supported by the native 
grasses in the arid regions of the Far West. This teem- 
ing life of the great plains was supported in the winter 
by the hay cured by the dry winds upon the native stalks. 

There are in the grass family about four thousand 
species, from the greatest of all — the bamboo — 100 feet 
high, down to the short buffalo grass of the arid plains. 
In this numerous family of plants is found the food of 
nearly all the animals which support the life of man. 
Civilized man draws his life and strength either directly 
or indirectly from the grasses of the field. The native 
grasses of America are amongst the most valuable known 
to mankind. When Timothy Herd discovered in the 
marshes of New England, and introduced to his neighbor- 
ing farmers the native plant that long bore his name, now 
familiarly shortened into plain " timothy," he conferred 
a blessing not only upon New England but upon the whole 
American people. 

The variety of these valuable grasses upon the western 
plains has been steadily decreasing since the country has 
been opened to settlement. In the settled portions of the 
East the intelligence of man has improved the pasturage, 
whilst the natural herbage of the Far West has been neg- 
lected because there was no one to care for it. 

There has always been a fascination in the maxim of 
"free grass," and the fear of monopoly in the hands of 
the large cattle owners has arrayed many of the settlers, 
if not the most of them, in the grazing states, against any 
proposition whatever for the leasing or private control in 
any way of any portion of the grazing lands. 

The legislature of the state of Montana has by resolu- 
tions expressed itself against any leasing proposition. 
The small landowner and the homesteader have looked 



ADDRESSES OF MAJOR LACEY 119 

with just apprehension upon any scheme which would 
enable the great cattle companies to fence in large tracts 
of the national domain and exclude the poor settler from 
enjoying the wild products of the public lands. This con- 
dition has existed for many years. There is a diversity 
of opinion upon the subject as to the extent to which the 
native pasturage has deteriorated, but the fact of its great 
decline is not disputed. That deterioration has been rea- 
sonably estimated amounting to the destruction of more 
than a million acres of grass land each year, and its con- 
version into a desert condition. 

The homesteaders in western Kansas and other locali- 
ties have taken up claims where it is impossible for them 
by cultivation to make a living for themselves and their 
families because of lack of rainfall. In taking these 
claims, however, they have plowed up considerable por- 
tions of the valuable native grasses, and while nominally 
improving the land, they in fact have injured it, because 
upon much of this land there is no product of any kind 
that can take the place of the native grasses and at the 
same time be a safe and reliable crop in usual dry seasons. 
Many of the ranges — in fact, most of them — have been 
heavily and persistently overstocked. Many varieties of 
the grasses are annuals, and in the fierce competition 
among the herders not a sufficient quantity of grass is 
permitted to go to seed to renew the plants. 

The House committee on the public lands has had this 
matter before them for many years. Personally I have 
realized the necessity for doing something toward the 
restoration of the natural pasturage, but in considering 
this matter I have always found myself confronted with 
the difficulty that the small settler and homesteader would 
probably be crowded to the wall under such system unless 
it should be guarded with exceeding care. 

The state of Texas has for many years leased its graz- 



120 MAJOR JOHN F. LACEY 

ing lands. The change from free grazing to the leasing 
system was attended with violence and bloodshed in that 
state, but public sentiment has steadily grown in favor of 
the leasing system, until the people there are practically 
unanimous in their commendation of the law. The only 
criticism there is, is that the leasing of the land in very 
large tracts has retarded the settlement of some parts of 
the state. 

Experience, however, in Texas has shown that the 
leased tracts have produced an increased amount of 
grass, and that the land is capable of sustaining a much 
larger number of cattle under the leasing system than 
under the old method of free grazing. The reason for 
this is very evident. Where there is a proprietary inter- 
est in the pasturage, the owner will endeavor to manage 
it in such a way as to increase the product. On the other 
hand, where the range is free to all, with no proprietary 
rights in the future, each cattle and sheep owner endeav- 
ors to get all the grass he can without any reference to 
the future. 

The annual grasses are eaten before going to seed, and 
the pasture of next year is not considered. A wise farmer 
would not feed his seed corn to his flocks, and the seed of 
many of these grasses is equally as necessary. I believe 
there ought to be a remedy for this, and after many years' 
service upon the public lands committee I have thought it 
my duty to attempt to prepare a bill which I believe will 
overcome or minimize the evil to which I have referred 
and at the same time avoid the other evil of monopoliza- 
tion of the range. I have therefore prepared a bill that 
I believe will be just, by limiting the leasing rights in 
comparatively small tracts to the homesteaders and resi- 
dent landowners only. 

The bill provides for leasing only the arid and semiarid 
land which is not capable of irrigation, the leases to run 



ADDRESSES OF MAJOR LACEY 121 

only for a term of five years and be limited to 3,200 acres 
to any one person ; they shall not be assignable or trans- 
ferable and shall only be made to homestead settlers or 
actual freeholders whose lands are in the vicinity of the 
grazing lands to be leased. Where there is not sufficient 
land to supply the necessary amount for the various ap- 
plicants, the same to be prorated, the annual rental to be 
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, or 6 cents an acre, according to the grade of 
the land, the land being classified by the Department of 
the Interior for that purpose. The large landholder may 
also lease land, but the maximum of 3,200 acres applies to 
all alike. Corporations are not privileged to lease under 
this bill. The land remains open to mineral, homestead, 
or other lawful entry, and when entered the lease is to be 
canceled. Streams and watering places are not to be in- 
cluded in any of these leases, and the right of way 
through leased lands to and from watering places is re- 
served to other lessees. 

The bill provides that the law shall be put in force in 
any state or territory only by proclamation at the request 
of the state or territorial legislature. This will prevent 
the operation of the act in such states and territories as 
do not desire its benefits. It also provides that the net 
receipts of the leases shall be used for irrigation works in 
the state or territory where collected. 

From this brief statement of the scope of the bill it will 
be seen that for a very small rental the homesteaders and 
small landowners will be able to utilize their property by 
obtaining grazing rights which it will be to their interest 
to protect. The total amount of grazing lands in the 
country will be exactly the same after these leases are 
made as before, but the small settler, and large settler as 
well, will thus be able, upon a limited amount of the pub- 
lic domain, to protect the grass from improvident and de- 
structive grazing. They will be able by shifting their 



122 MAJOR JOHN F. LACEY 

cattle from one part to another to allow the depleted 
range to become restored, and the certainty that they will 
get the benefit of the increased production will induce 
them to care for the pasture with a view to its preserva- 
tion. 

There is only one experiment involved in this bill, and 
that is the attempt to limit its operation to the home- 
steader and the small landowner alone. This will work 
no hardship upon the large cattle owners, because the re- 
maining land will still be open to free range, and the 
owners of the large herds can also subdivide their stock 
and let portions of the same out to graze upon the leased 
lands. It would result in a new impetus to homestead 
settlement, for settlers would locate homesteads in order 
to have the benefit of the appurtenant leasehold right who 
could not afford to make the attempt to live on 160 acres 
of land in a locality where the great sheep and cattle own- 
ers would consume all of the surrounding pasturage. 

Many of the arid states are already trying the experi- 
ment of leasing state lands on their own account, and al- 
though these leases have not been in existence very long, 
the results in some of the states would indicate that the 
leased state range is already very much better than the 
public land in the same locality that has been subject to 
free and indiscriminate grazing. 

The subdivision and exercise of proper care in the man- 
agement of this immense area of pasture land is even 
more important in my judgment than the question of ir- 
rigation, for nearly all of the arid lands can be made to 
produce pasture, while comparatively a very small por- 
tion can ever be used successfully in raising irrigated 
crops. The leases not being transferable, the amount of 
each lease being limited, the range would be preserved 
and at the same time protected from monopoly. 

It is proposed in the bill that corporations shall not be 



ADDRESSES OF MAJOR LACEY 123 

permitted to lease. The reason for this is evident. A 
corporation is not a settler and has no family or home. 
Corporations can be created without number, and if 
leases were open to corporations under this bill they 
could readily locate tracts of 320 acres without settle- 
ment and then take leasehold privileges of 3,200 acres 
each appurtenant to their holdings, and effectually pre- 
vent the settlement of large areas that under this bill 
would become the home of ranchers. Under existing 
laws homesteads in the public lands are provided for 
farmers ; this bill will open up the way for pastoral home- 
steads in a region where ordinary cultivation is not prac- 
ticable. 

I believe if this bill should be enacted into law it would 
be followed by very considerable increase in population 
in all the arid states, because we would have practically a 
new form of homesteader — a homestead settler who 
would take land because of its appurtenant rights, feel- 
ing confident that upon his homestead and leasehold lands 
he could be sure of a living for himself and family. 

If I am right in my suggestion that intelligent and pru- 
dent management would increase the grass product, then 
it follows that more cattle could be supported upon the 
same amount of land than under the present entire lack 
of care, system, and method. 

In Oregon the wheat farmer raises a wonderful quan- 
tity of grain to the acre ; but the good farmer there only 
raises two crops in three years or one crop in two years 
and gives his land the benefit of a year's summer fallow. 
The Hebrews recognized that the land, as well as man, 
must have periods of rest. Pastures, too, must have rest 
from time to time or they will become worthless. A les- 
see will consider his own self-interest in the care of the 
grazing lands that he may control, and by shifting his 
cattle from time to time will allow the restoration of the 



124 MAJOR JOHN F. LACEY 

native grasses. Regions where the herbage was once 
very rich have become desolate. Under proper care they 
can be again restored. 

The grass of the land is the life of the land. Grass is 
the healer that covers the scars of nature. Grass makes 
all the difference between a desert and a meadow. The 
pastures of the West are of the first importance to the 
whole people of the United States. I earnestly plead for 
their care and restoration. 



THE PUBLIC DOMAIN » 

Editors and Journalists: 

It is a pleasure to look into the faces of so many mold- 
ers of thought for southern Iowa. In fact this organiza- 
tion might be properly termed "The Thought Molders' 
Union." It is surely a good purpose which brings such 
an organization as this together and I am glad to be able 
to speak to you. 

Roscoe Conkling said that there were only three classes 
of individuals who can speak of themselves individually 
as "we" and they are crowned heads, editors, and men 
having tapeworm. 

Lord Coleridge said that a judge is a man who knows 
the laws of his own country and that a jurist is a man 
who knows something of the laws of every country but 
his own. 

Definitions are always dangerous. I once got into 
trouble by calling a violinist a fiddler. Artemus Ward, 
fearing a similar trouble, referred to a sculptor as a 
sculpist. 

I am at a loss whether to address you as editors or 
journalists and have therefore on the score of safety 
called you both. 

It is true that today's newspapers will kindle tomor- 
row's fires but the thoughts of today's editorial will sur- 
vive the cremation of the body. Thought is immortal. 

Courage and conscience are the foundation of all good 
newspaper work; but courage is not demonstrated by 

i Address of Hon. John F. Lacey before the Southeastern Iowa Editorial 
Association, Oskaloosa, Iowa, October 12, 1905. 



126 MAJOR JOHN F. LACEY 

running amuck at everything in sight, and dyspepsia 
should never be mistaken for conscience. 

The editor's stool is a seat of power, but when the 
power is abused its influence is weakened. The sincerity, 
the candor, and the fairness of the editor are his surest 
source of strength with the people. 

The same maxim which applies to other public men is 
equally applicable to the editorial profession: "Be 
faithful to the people and they will be faithful to you. ' ' 

And the sentiment of either the people or the press is 
never to be obtained from mere clamor. 

The silent and earnest opinion of the readers of the 
press is often difficult to fathom. The noise of the shal- 
lows should not be mistaken for the tide of the depths. 

It was said by a public man that he spent the first ten 
years of his public life in maintaining an expensive pub- 
licity bureau and in trying to keep in the newspapers, 
and that he spent the next ten years trying to keep out of 
them. 

Think of the millions that the New York life insurance 
companies have spent in securing whole pages in the great 
daily papers in the past. Now they get abundant space 
on the first page free of charge. 

Mohammed claimed to be a true prophet. His Koran 
was written on the shoulder blades of mutton and after 
his death the dry bones were collected and became the 
guide of Islam. The Koran says : 

If whatever trees are in the world were pens and He should 
swell the seas into seven seas of ink the words of God would not 
be exhausted, for God is mighty and wise. 

But the trees have not become pens. Had Mohammed 
been a true prophet he would have foreseen the time 
when the forests should be turned into paper instead of 
pens and when the Sunday newspaper will contain more 
printed matter than would make several Korans. 



ADDRESSES OF MAJOR LACEY 127 

The man who can write a pithy paragraph is a great 
power in the newspaper world. Bourrienne says that 
Napoleon feared a paragraph more than an army corps. 

After being invited to address you I was in some doubt 
as to the choice of a subject when an editorial friend sug- 
gested "The Public Domain." As this is a non-partisan 
gathering I concluded to act upon the suggestion. 

The people of Iowa are not as much interested in this 
subject as they once were, for not a single acre of the pub- 
lic land remains in the ownership of the government in 
this state. 

The land of Iowa has passed from the control of the 
government to the individual ownership of our citizens 
and is being put to the best use by furnishing homes and 
employment to the inhabitants of a great and prosperous 
commonwealth. 

The public domain was once a more vital subject of in- 
terest than at present. 

It was in a debate on a land bill that Webster made his 
celebrated reply to Hayne and the nationalizing of the un- 
occupied lands was one of the strongest bonds for the 
maintenance of the Union. 

But there are 800,000,000 acres of public lands remain- 
ing and the subject is still one of great importance. 

The first essential to the prosperity of any country, is 
that there should be a. good title to the soil. I wish to re- 
call to your minds a few of the complex circumstances out 
of which the present perfect title of the great Northwest 
has grown. There were many real estate puzzles, grow- 
ing out of the vague geography, and the wild prodigality 
with which the royal British family dealt with these prov- 
inces, which they neither understood, nor in fact held. 
They took the proposing colonists, figuratively speaking, 
up into a high mountain and pointed out all the land in 
sight, and distributed it with a vague and reckless pro- 



128 MAJOR JOHN F. LACEY 

fusion, placing overlapping grants which necessitated al- 
most endless trouble for other people, long after the 
grantor and grantees had gone to that land where there 
are no land title problems. 

It would be interesting, in this connection, to discuss 
the question of how near Chicago came to being a part of 
Connecticut. James I, in 1606, made the first grant to 
Virginia which ran from the Atlantic, west and northwest 
to the Pacific Ocean. No one knew the distance, but there 
was no doubt but that the great ocean was somewhere in 
that direction. Then came the Massachusetts grant of 
1620, also running from sea to sea. On April 23, 1662, 
Charles II, who had not long before been a fugitive in 
France, granted to the Connecticut Company a charter 
and land grant "in New England, in America, bounded 
on the east by the Narragansett river, commonly called 
Narragansett Bay, on the north by the Massachusetts 
Plantation, on the south by the sea, and in longitude as 
the line of the Massachusetts colony running from east to 
west, that is to say, from the Narragansett Bay on the 
east, to the South Sea on the west including all islands 
thereunto adjoining." This of course was a good grant, 
as far as Charles held title, but the claims of the Most 
Christian King of France intervened in the Far West, 
the settlement and rights of the Dutch on the Hudson cut 
the grant in two in part, whilst the overlying grant made 
in 1681 to William Penn by Charles II, afterwards also 
cut Connecticut in two on the south, and in 1664, the Brit- 
ish king gave to his "dearest brother, James the Duke of 
York, his heirs and assigns" the territory which is now 
principally occupied by the state of New York. James 
had already acquired the previous grant made in 1635 to 
the Earl of Sterling. The French did not discover the 
Mississippi until May 17, 1763, so that the grant of Con- 
necticut, by nearly a year antedates the French claims to 



ADDRESSES OF MAJOR LACEY 129 

Louisiana. The French in the north were trappers, the 
Spanish in the south were gold seekers, but the English 
were settlers. 

It is always interesting to discuss what might have 
been, but it is almost unthinkable to consider the northern 
part of Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois as constituting a part 
of the state of Connecticut, in the light of subsequent his- 
tory. But there was a complex variety of things which 
brought about the present configuration of the great state 
of Illinois, and the transfer of the land on which Chicago 
stands to the national government, by the state of Con- 
necticut. New T York had a shadowy claim, in the days of 
the Revolution, to parts of Ohio and Virginia. Maryland 
refused to enter the confederation of the Revolution, on 
the ground that the Northwest Country should be ceded 
to the united colonies as a whole, but she still joined 
hands with her sisters in doing her best to make the 
struggle for liberty a successful one. It was not, how- 
ever, till 1781 that she finally became an actual part of the 
confederation. It was fortunate that there were so many 
conflicting charters and claims in the Northwest, thus 
adding to the reasons for nationalizing the public lands. 

New l r ork's claims were very shadowy, and rested 
upon very slight foundations, but her unconditional con- 
veyance of these claims to the national government paved 
the way for the action of other states. Virginia had for- 
tified her paper title by the successful expedition of Gen- 
eral George Rogers Clark. 

The peace of 1783 involved France and Spain as well 
as England. But Jay, Franklin, and Adams so managed 
it as to save the great Northwest, including the unknown 
wealth of Lake Superior in iron and copper. 

It was a keen negotiation but the decision opened up 
the great possibilities of the Northwest to be followed by 
the Louisiana Purchase in 1803. 



130 MAJOR JOHN F. LACEY 

The treaties of 1763 and 1783 made the Mississippi our 
western boundary and marked the western limits of Con- 
necticut. 

A special Federal court met at Trenton, New Jersey, 
by authority of Congress, and tried the issue between 
Pennsylvania and Connecticut. It located the west line 
of Pennsylvania where it now is, but left Connecticut to 
claim the ancient boundaries as far west as the Missis- 
sippi River. 

Massachusetts asserted her claims to much of the land 
now occupied by Michigan and Wisconsin. Massachu- 
setts conveyed her title April 19, 1785 ; Virginia, March 
1, 1784; New York made her cession March 1, 1781; 
Georgia made a pretty close bargain with the government 
for the transfer of her western claims to the Mississippi, 
but Connecticut granted her lands, with all the possibil- 
ities of Chicago in the future, on September 14, 1786. 
She reserved, however, 3,250,000 acres in northern Ohio, 
' ' The Connecticut Western Reserve, ' ' of which she after- 
wards sold the soil, and subsequently ceded the sover- 
eignty to the national government. This last was done 
in order that a perfected title might be given to the Con 
necticut Company to which she had granted the Western 
Reserve. 

What a remarkable state Connecticut would have been ! 
Her emblem should have been the kangaroo, the greatest 
part would have been behind. She ceded Chicago, but 
kept Cleveland and the Western Reserve. Had they not 
afterwards made the relinquishment of political juris- 
diction over the Western Reserve, her statesmen might 
now say that they "had lost Chicago; they had lost Har- 
rison and Dunne, but they still had the city of Cleveland 
with the graves of Garfield and Hanna and a living Tom 
Johnson." But the future Chicago's troubles were not 
yet at an end. Wisconsin wanted the north fourteen 



ADDRESSES OF MAJOR LACEY 131 

counties of Illinois, and these counties, including Cook, 
seemed quite willing to leave Illinois. Michigan unwil- 
lingly gave up a few hundred square miles in Ohio, in- 
cluding the present Toledo, and took instead the Northern 
Peninsula with the richest iron and copper mines on the 
planet. 

The questions were viewed in the most practical way 
by our ancestors. ''Better an acre in Middlesex than a 
principality in Utopia. ' ' 

It is wonderfully interesting to look over the chain of 
title which opened up the great Northwest in the form in 
which it now appears upon the map of the states. The 
ordinance of 1785, simplifying surveys and providing the 
present method, by sections, townships, and ranges, was 
one of the most important steps toward the settlement 
and growth of that region. 

The Connecticut Western Reserve retained its town- 
ships in squares of five miles instead of six, but the system 
was the same. In Europe land was entailed and prog- 
ress halted a thousand years. In swift-moving America, 
land is as transferable as a horse or a bale of goods. The 
man who has it is not required to keep it, and with rapid 
and easy transfers, lasting improvements have speedily 
been erected. There is no bar to human progress like a 
refractory land title. 

Perfect titles, simple surveys, easy transfers, secure 
and recorded, prohibition of entailment, these are ele- 
ments that seem to us so commonplace that it is difficult 
to realize how important they have been to our national 
growth. 

When the first currents that set from Massachusetts, 
Connecticut, and Virginia were lost in the great ocean of 
national unity, then came the public domain. Wise laws 
opened the way to utilize the rich soil and healthful cli- 
mate for the homes of a free people. Individual owner- 



132 MAJOR JOHN F. LACEY 

ship, stimulating individual effort, was the inspiration of 
the settlement of the great Northwest. 

A few years ago the Turkish government brought for- 
ward an ancient claim, 250 years old, by which it was pro- 
posed to take for the crown the lands surrounding the 
city of Joppa. Private owners began to allow their 
property to go to decay. They quit watering the orange 
trees, and the country was threatened with ruin. The 
claim was abandoned, or the land would have returned 
once more to its mother, the desert. 

Before the white settlements in America, the title was 
held by the Indians in common. A number of misguided 
gentlemen today are urging the seizure of all lands 
through the proposed medium of a single tax. They 
claim to have something original in this proposition, but 
it is not, it is aboriginal. It was not only necessary to 
provide for good surveys and titles, but a free govern- 
ment, administered by free men, was even more essen- 
tial. 

The Ordinance of 1787 provided a system out of which 
has grown all the subsequent territorial organizations in 
the United States. The old Northwest, bounded on the 
west by the Mississippi and on the south by the Ohio, was 
larger than France, and larger than either the Austrian 
or German Empire. 

The political jurisdiction of the remote states on the 
seashore would have been a great handicap to the growth 
of the new country. Religious freedom, exclusion of 
negro slavery, the reservation of each sixteenth section 
for school purposes, were the great forces in the Ordi- 
nance of 1787. This Ordinance was not only a landmark 
in our history, but was a turning point in the history of 
civilization. The main features of the Ordinance, and of 
our national Constitution, which was also made in 1787, 
now seem so natural and reasonable that it is hard to 



ADDRESSES OF MAJOR LACEY 133 

realize the time when the principles of these two great 
charters were not recognized by all mankind. 

The Constitution did not prepare the way for our pub- 
lic domain. It was that domain which prepared the way 
for the Constitution. 

The cession of this great western empire to the nation 
at large was essential to the adoption of the Constitution 
itself. 

The Englishman, it is said, always has a "hunger for 
the horizon," which is another way of expressing the 
thought that land hunger is a characteristic of the race 
to which we belong. It is a chronic condition of the 
Anglo-Saxon. 

In 1763 Great Britain very seriously discussed the pro- 
priety of giving up Canada to France and taking Guade- 
loupe, including all the little islands around it, in ex- 
change. Dr. Franklin wrote a pamphlet of fifty pages, 
to prove that Canada was worth more than Guadeloupe. 
Franklin's argument prevailed, and in 1764 France sur- 
rendered all claims east of the Mississippi River to Eng- 
land, and soon after, all west of the river to Spain. 

I will not follow up in this discussion the great event 
of the acquisition of the Louisiana Territory, our pur- 
chase from Spain and Mexico, nor our title by discovery 
and settlement in Oregon and Washington. 

The old Northwest is now occupied by Ohio, Indiana, 
Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, and a part of Minnesota. 
Minnesota was only half in the old Northwest Territory, 
and has been said to be only a half sister to the other five 
states of that territory. But the same public land sys- 
tem has been extended to our other continental acquisi- 
tions. 

The next great step in relation to our public domain, 
was the free homestead era which began in 1862. This 
was second only in importance to the ordinances of 1785 



134 MAJOR JOHN F. LACEY 

and 1787. However much we may criticise the land 
grants which aided in carrying the railroads to the Pa- 
cific Coast, it is undoubtedly true that the settlement of 
the vast empire between the Mississippi and the Pacific 
was very greatly accelerated by this policy. Another 
important departure from all previous methods was the 
adoption of the existing system of administering our 
public mineral lands. 

The old Spanish law, under which the crown owned all 
the precious metals, was abrogated, and every induce- 
ment held out to the hardy explorer whose venturesome 
spirit led him into almost every part of the Far West. 
Even far away Alaska, purchased by Seward in 1868 and 
looked upon as an indirect way of giving $7,200,000 to 
Russia for her friendship in the Civil War, has proven 
to be one of the richest of all our possessions, and each 
year that territory yields us in gold, fish, and furs, very 
much more than the whole of the original purchase price. 

We have today in the public domain, including Alaska, 
something over 800,000,000 acres of lands. The best of 
the agricultural land has passed into private ownership. 
A system of national irrigation has been entered upon 
which will make homes for many more millions of our 
population. Seventy-five million acres of timbered lands 
have been set apart as permanent forest reserves, but 
one of the greatest sources of national wealth has in my 
judgment been greatly neglected. Nearly 500,000,000 
acres of grazing lands still belong to the nation. Most of 
these lands are unsuited for the making of homes by the 
old methods. Much of the grass is annual, and if grazed 
too closely, it will produce no crop in the succeeding year. 
The subject is a very interesting one and in my opinion 
is one of the most important with which this generation 
has to deal. Some method must be devised by which the 
grazing may be carried on so as to produce the largest 



ADDRESSES OF MAJOR LACEY 135 

amount of pasturage. To discuss this question as it de- 
serves, would occupy more time than is allotted to me. 

The foremost and most reliable form of wealth is in 
real estate, but corner lots may now be purchased for a 
song in Palmyra and Nineveh, but recently the Napoleons 
of finance have obtained their commissions in the navy 
and seek riches in another element by watering stock. 

Aquarius, the water bearer, should be their emblem. 

The sunshine of publicity has caused great evapora- 
tion in this liquid aggregation of wealth. Let me sug- 
gest an epitaph for one of these so-called captains of in- 
dustry. At the base of the pyramid of Cestius in the 
English cemetery at Rome, lie the remains of the poet 
Keats, who caused to be inscribed on his head stone, 
"Here lies one whose name is writ in water." 

No wealth is so enduring as that which finds its roots in 
the soil, but in America the very rich have generally pre- 
ferred a more productive, though less lucrative, form of 
property. 

The old families of New York City who have grown 
rich by the wisdom of their ancestors, are now busy 
tracing their genealogical trees back to Alfred the Great. 
None of them care to go back to Noah, for that would con- 
nect with their uncles, Shem and Ham. 

The public domain will have accomplished its great 
purpose when it has finally passed into the ownership of 
prosperous citizens. 



ENLARGING THE POWERS OF THE DEPART- 
MENT OF AGRICULTURE x 

The committee on interstate and foreign commerce, to 
whom was referred the bill (H. R. 6634) to enlarge the 
powers of the Department of Agriculture, prohibit the 
transportation by interstate commerce of game killed in 
violation of local laws, and for other purposes, beg leave 
to submit the following report, and recommend that said 
bill do pass, with an amendment. 

This bill has a three-fold purpose : 

1. It is intended to authorize the secretary of agri- 
culture to provide for the introduction and restoration of 
game, song, and insectivorous wild birds in such parts of 
the country as he may deem it desirable to do so. 

In many of the states the native birds have been well- 
nigh exterminated. Agriculture suffers a pecuniary loss 
by their destruction, for they are the farmer's and plant- 
er's best friends in the destruction of noxious insects. 
There is a sentiment involved in the question that makes 
the preservation and restoration of these birds a matter 
of public concern. Attempts have frequently been made 
by private individuals and clubs to introduce new varie- 
ties, or to restore again the old varieties of feathered life. 
Their active and persistent foes have usually destroyed 
such birds within a year or two after their introduction. 

There have been some notable exceptions to this rule. 
In Oregon the Chinese pheasant has become abundant, 

i Mr. Sherman, from the committee on interstate and foreign commerce, 
submitted the report, to accompany H. E. 6634 presented by Mr. Laeey. 
The report of Mr. Sherman is a lengthy one and therefore is omitted here. 
Only Major Lacey's own speech is reprinted. 



ADDRESSES OF MAJOR LACEY 137 

though it has been introduced within the last twenty 
years. Your committee believes that the birds that may 
be the subject of experiment by the Department of Agri- 
culture will receive more encouragement from the people 
than when private individuals undertake their introduc- 
tion or restoration. The prairie chicken has almost dis- 
appeared in many of the states of the Northwest. Should 
some of these birds be turned loose in North Carolina 
and Virginia, national and public sentiment would pro- 
tect them and in time they might become abundant there. 
At any rate the experiment is worthy of a trial. The 
grouse of the northwestern Pacific Coast would no doubt 
readily adapt itself to the woods of Pennsylvania and 
the states of the far south. 

At a moderate expense the Department of Agriculture 
could not only introduce new species but could return 
species that have become locally extinct, and at the same 
time disseminate such information as would create a 
healthy public sentiment for their preservation. 

2. The bill places it within the power of the secretary 
of agriculture to prevent the unwise introduction of for- 
eign birds and animals. 

Had this power existed some years ago it would have 
spared the presence of the English sparrow, whose im- 
portation was the result of the mistake of some well- 
meaning people who had not given the history and habits 
of these birds a proper study. 

3. The most important purpose of this bill is to sup- 
plement the state laws for the protection of game and 
birds. The various states and territories have enacted 
appropriate laws for this purpose, but the laws are 
evaded by the pot-hunter, and deer, antelope, prairie 
chickens, grouse, quail, and all kinds of game are shipped 
concealed in various methods to other states where they 
are sold in the open market. This bill is intended to be- 



138 MAJOR JOHN F. LACEY 

gin where the state laws leave off. The state laws can 
have no extradition force and the national laws can not 
operate in a single state. 

But interstate commerce is wholly in the control of the 
federal government. Where the states are powerless to 
protect themselves the national government has ample 
power. This bill goes to the very root of this matter by 
forbidding interstate commerce in such animals and birds 
when killed or caught in violation of local laws. To il- 
lustrate: The pot-hunter in Iowa, Missouri, or Kansas 
kills quails out of season and in violation of the laws of 
those states. He does not merely kill a few for his own 
use, but he slaughters or traps them indiscriminately for 
the purpose of sending them for sale in the market. He 
avoids the state law by secretly shipping them to a mar- 
ket beyond the state. 

When the birds arrive at their destination they are ex- 
posed for sale, and as they were not killed in the state, 
the state laws do not meet the case. Now, if the game 
wardens or other law officers of these states could watch 
the market and punish the persons engaged in the ship- 
ment, the traffic could be broken up. 

The carriers have no desire to aid in this nefarious 
traffic. The amount of their charges for freight on such 
goods is a very inconsiderable sum, and there would be 
no dispositioii on their part to interfere with the enforce- 
ment of the law. On the contrary, we believe that they 
would generally respect the letter and spirit of the law. 
But should the carriers knowingly transport game killed 
out of season they would be amenable under the pro- 
posed bill. 

The consignor and the consignee would know that they 
were dealing in illegal property, and a few examples 
would break up the business. No state's rights or priv- 
ileges are infringed by this bill. 



ADDRESSES OF MAJOR LACEY 139 

Interstate commerce is beyond the state control. The 
killing or carrying of game within the limits of a state 
is a matter wholly within the jurisdiction of the state. 
But when the fruits of the violation of state laws are car- 
ried beyond the state, the nation alone has the power to 
forbid the transit and to punish those engaged in the 
traffic. This bill will give to the game wardens the very 
power that they now lack and which would be the most 
effective for the purpose of breaking up this commerce. 
The bill is supported by many persons and associations 
throughout the United States, and your committee are of 
the opinion that it will be of much aid in preventing the 
present rapid extermination of our game, song, and in- 
sectivorous birds. 

In some of the states the sale of certain game is for- 
bidden at all seasons without regard to the place where 
the same was killed. The purpose of these laws is to 
prevent the use of game shipped into the state from be- 
ing used as a cloak for the sale of game killed within the 
state in violation of local laws. The sale of such im- 
ported goods in original packages defeats the operation 
of these laws, and the committee has prepared an addi- 
tional section 5, which is in substantially the same lan- 
guage as the Wilson original package act of August, 
1890. 

The reasons for the Wilson act of 1890 are well known, 
and the principle of that act should be applied in game 
protection. 

We propose the following amendment : 

Sec. 5. That all dead bodies or parts thereof, of any foreign 
animals or birds, the importation of which is prohibited, or the 
dead bodies, or parts thereof, of any wild animals or birds trans- 
ported into any state or territory or remaining therein for use, 
consumption, sale, or storage therein, shall upon arrival in such 
state or territory, be subject to the operation and effect of the 



140 MAJOR JOHN F. LACEY 

laws of such state or territory enacted in the exercise of its police 
powers, to the same extent and in the same manner as though 
such animals or birds had been produced in such state or terri- 
ory, and shall not be exempt therefrom by reason of being intro- 
duced therein in original packages or otherwise. 



INTERSTATE COMMERCE IN GAME AND BIRDS 

IN VIOLATION OF STATE LAW; LET US 

SAVE THE BIRDS x 

This bill is one that has attracted a good deal of inter- 
est in various sections of the country. Horticulturists, 
agriculturists, and lovers of birds everywhere, and also 
the League of American Sportsmen, and others inter- 
ested in game and the protection of game all over the 
United States have been strongly enlisted in its support. 

Briefly, the bill provides for a few purposes only. 
First it authorizes the secretary of agriculture to utilize 
his department for the reintroduction of birds that have 
become locally extinct or are becoming so in some parts 
of the United States. There are some kinds of insect- 
ivorous birds and some kinds of game birds, that here- 
tofore were abundant in many localities, which have be- 
come very scarce indeed, and in some localities entirely 
exterminated. The wild pigeon, formerly in this country 
in flocks of millions, has entirely disappeared from the 
face of the earth. Some hopeful enthusiasts have claimed 
that the pigeon would again be heard from in South Am- 
erica, but there seems to be no well-grounded basis for 
this hope. In some localities certain kinds of grouse 
have almost entirely disappeared. This bill gives the 
secretary of of agriculture power to aid in the reintroduc- 
tion, which, I think, will prove a useful adjunct to the ac- 
tion of the states which have undertaken the preserva- 
tion of the native wild birds. 

1 Speech of Hon. John F. Lacey, of Iowa, in the House of Representa- 
tives, April 30, 1900. 



142 MAJOR JOHN F. LACEY 

Now, the next purpose in the bill is to allow the secre- 
tary of agriculture to control the importation of foreign 
wild birds and foreign wild animals. If this law had 
been in force at the time the mistake was made in the in- 
troduction of the English sparrow we should have been 
spared from the pestilential existence of that ' ' rat of the 
air," that vermin of the atmosphere. But some gentle- 
men who thought they knew better than anybody else 
what the country needed saw fit to import these little 
pests, and they have done mucn toward driving the na- 
tive wild bird life out of the states. This bill provides 
that the secretary may prevent the importation of the 
fruit bat, or the flying fox, the English sparrow, the star- 
ling, and other birds of that kind, which, in his discre- 
tion, he may regard as detrimental. 

The necessity for a provision of this kind is obvious. 
The mongoose, a miserable, murderous animal that was 
introduced for the purpose of killing snakes in Jamaica 
— by the way, one member of the House asked me the 
other day what kind of a bird the mongoose was — the 
mongoose has proved a nuisance and a pest worse than 
the serpent that it kills. It drove the rats in Jamaica 
to the trees, and the rat now there has become an arboreal 
animal. The rat still exists and keeps out of the way of 
the mongoose. But the birds of the island have been al- 
most destroyed by this imported pest. Now, a proper 
control on the part of the secretary of agriculture would 
prevent the importation of injurious foreign animals. 
Some gentlemen in California have suggested the pro- 
priety of introducing the fruit bat or flying fox there, 
and this bill would prevent their importation. They 
would prove as great a nuisance as the English rabbits in 
Australia and the Scotch thistle in Canada. Some pa- 
triotic son of Scotland wanted to see if the thistle would 



ADDRESSES OF MAJOR LACEY 143 

grow in Canada. He tried it, and there is no dispute 
about it now. It grows in Canada. 

There is a compensation in the distribution of plants, 
birds, and animals by the God of nature. Man's attempt 
to change and interfere often leads to serious results. 
The French pink was introduced as a flower in Oregon, 
and it has spread throughout the wheat fields and become 
an injury to agriculture. The English yard plantain 
has become a great evil in New Zealand. 

Rabbits were introduced in Australia, and today the 
most persistent efforts are necessary to keep them within 
endurable limits. The Russian thistle is spreading with 
great rapidity in the Dakotas, and though this plant has 
finally proven to have some value for forage, yet the peo- 
ple of the Northwest would be glad if the plant had never 
found a footing in that region. 

It is important that the introduction of foreign wild 
birds and animals should be under competent legal su- 
pervision, and this bill will accomplish that result. 

The next proposition in the bill, and that is the vital 
one of all, is to prohibit interstate commerce in birds and 
wild game — that is, insectivorous, useful birds, and wild 
game birds, and wild game of any kind killed in violation 
of local laws. Take the state of Georgia, that has en- 
acted most rigid laws for the protection of insectivorous 
birds and game birds. Trappers go there and catch the 
quail, net or trap them in violation of the local law, pack 
them in barrels or boxes and ship them to other markets 
in the United States. It is done secretly. The result is 
that the market houses in other states have been utilized 
as places in which to dispose of these birds and animals 
killed in violation of the laws of the state. Game war- 
dens of the various states have long desired some legisla- 
tion of this kind by which they can stop the nefarious 



144 MAJOR JOHN F. LACEY 

traffic in birds and game killed in defiance of their state 
laws. 

Take the state which I have the honor in part to rep- 
resent — the state of Iowa. A few years ago it was filled 
with prairie chickens ; quails were abundant. A careful 
protection of the quails has recently resulted in an in- 
crease of those beautiful little birds ; but the shipment of 
prairie chickens has still been going on until they have 
well-nigh become extinct. This bill if enacted into law 
would enable the local authorities to prevent the trans- 
portation of these birds. It is perfectly evident, how- 
ever, that such a law might be abused unless suitably 
guarded. Persons might make use of it for the purpose 
of blackmailing the carriers. Therefore a provision has 
been inserted in this bill by which carriers will not be held 
responsible for the shipment unless they have knowingly 
carried the forbidden articles. But the shipper can not 
plead ignorance, and when complaint is made against the 
carrier, he will transfer the responsibility of the crime to 
the shipper, and the result will be that the whole traffic 
can be broken up. 

As to insectivorous birds, I saw an article going the 
rounds of the newspapers the other day purporting to 
give an interview between my friend from Illinois (Mr. 
Cannon) and myself. Whilst the interview was not 
stated with entire accuracy, the general facts are true, 
and I will repeat it now as an illustration of one of the 
features of this bill. 

When the bill was up in the House before on a motion 
to suspend the rules, my friend from Illinois raised the 
question of "no quorum." Two-thirds of the House 
were in favor of passing the bill, but there was not a 
quorum present; and the gentleman from Illinois raised 
that point and prevented further consideration of the 
bill. The next day I came to the House with my pockets 



ADDRESSES OF MAJOR LACEY 145 

full of the most beautiful looking apples. They were fair 
to look upon, but were veritable "Dead Sea fruit." I 
went around and offered them to my friend. He loves 
apples as well as I love birds. He opened them. 

They were all perforated with the tunnels that the 
worms had dug in passing through the fruit. I asked 
him if he had ever seen that condition in apples when he 
was a boy. He said no ; it was a recent thing. I inquired 
whether he often saw an apple now that did not show the 
foul track of a worm through its interior. He said, 
"What of that?" "Well," said I, "my friend, the kill- 
ing of the birds causes this condition — man kills the 
birds that killed the insect that laid the egg that hatched 
the worm that denied the apple. ' ' Thus following back in 
something the fashion of "The House that Jack Built," 
we reach the real cause of most of this trouble. The de- 
struction of the insectivorous birds has resulted in the 
loss of our fruit. No wonder the farmers and horticul- 
turists are interested in this proposition ! 

Objection was made to this bill upon the theory that it 
was a purely sentimental measure intended merely to 
strike at bird millinery. Not so. It is true that there is 
some sentiment in the bill ; and it is a proper, a legitimate 
sentiment. The love of birds is something that ought to 
be taught in every school. Their protection is something 
that ought to be inculcated in the mind of every boy and 
girl. I have always been a lover of the birds ; and I have 
always been a hunter as well ; for today there is no friend 
that the birds have like the true sportsman — the man 
who enjoys legitimate sport. He protects them out of 
season ; he kills them in moderation in season. The 
"game hog" is an animal on two legs that is disappear- 
ing. May he soon become extinct! The "game hog" 
formerly had himself photographed surrounded by the 
fruits of a day's "sport," and regarded the photograph 



146 MAJOR JOHN F. LACEY 

as imperfect unless he had a hundred dead ducks, grouse, 
or geese around him. Today a true sportsman would be 
ashamed to be pictured in connection with a larger num- 
ber of fowls than a decent share of an American gunner, 
having due regard to the preservation of the game for the 
future. 

This bill is directed against the pot-hunter. When you 
take away his market you destroy his occupation. Take 
away his market or put that market under the surveil- 
lance of the game wardens, and the pot-hunter must cease 
to carry on his nefarious traffic. He is the man who 
should have no friends on the floor of this House or any- 
where in the United States of America. He is the relent- 
less enemy of all animal life. The states have awakened 
to the necessity of preserving what remains of bird life, 
with which nature so generously endowed our country. 
State laws of a rigorous character are enacted, and a 
public sentiment has grown up in favor of the enforce- 
ment of the statutes. 

But the facility of commerce in these days of rapid 
transit enables the violator of the state law to market the 
product of his crime at a distance, and thus defy the laws 
of his own commonwealth. This bill will supply the pres- 
ent defect in the law, and a halt can be called upon the 
ruthless destruction and exportation of the small remains 
of our once apparently inexhaustible bird population. 

Seton-Thompson tells us that no wild bird or wild ani- 
mal ever dies of old age. Their lives, sooner or later, al- 
ways have a tragic end. When a wild animal makes a 
mistake the penalty is death. 

The gulls, the scavengers of our bays and harbors, are 
now being killed for use as ornaments. 

The plumes of the egrets are especially sought after; 
and as their plumage is at its best when nesting, the 
mother bird is shot while rearing its young, and the or- 



ADDRESSES OF MAJOR LACEY 147 

phan family is destroyed that the mother's plumes may 
decorate the headgear of humanity. 

There is one feature of bird protection with which this 
bill does not pretend to deal. 

The plumage merchant has held out inducements to 
hunters which have well-nigh exterminated some of the 
most beautiful creatures in the world. 

In a single sale in London, in 1898, 116,490 skins of 
humming birds and 228,289 bundles of Indian parrots 
were sold for decorative purposes. In that sale over 
500,000 bird skins were disposed of. 

It is a pitiful thing to contemplate the slaughter of 
such a multitude of these beauties for the gratification of 
human vanity. Many people are deeply interested in the 
proposition to forbid the importation of the plumage of 
foreign birds, but that would involve the attempt to re- 
form the world before purifying ourselves. 

We should cast the beam out of our own eye first. 

Let us take care of our own birds and game before at- 
tempting to go into the fields and forests of other lands. 

By taking this course we will set an example to other 
countries and the good work of bird and game protection 
in America may serve as a model. 

We have given an awful exhibition of slaughter and de- 
struction, which may serve as a warning to all mankind. 
Let us now give an example of wise conservation of what 
remains of the gifts of nature. 

It is late. It is too late as to the wild pigeon. The 
buffalo is almost a thing of the past, but there still re- 
main much to preserve, and we must act earnestly if we 
would accomplish good results. 

To the last section of this bill, which was designed to 
obviate the effect of the " original-package" law in pro- 
tecting the pot-hunter, I have agreed to offer an amend- 
ment, putting it in such form as I think will remove the 



148 MAJOR JOHN F. LACEY 

only opposition that this bill has really encountered on 
the floor of the House. I will offer the amendment at the 
proper time as a substitute for section 5. 

Now, if gentlemen who desired to ask me questions 
wish to do so, I shall be pleased to answer any question 
in regard to the bill. I hope to see it pass without a dis- 
senting vote. 

Me. Gaines. Will the gentleman from Iowa allow me 
to ask him a question? 

Mb. Lacey. Certainly. 

Mr. Gaines. Are not the birds, I would ask my friend 
from Iowa, being exterminated largely by the prize shoot- 
ers? 

Mr. Lacey. I think not to any considerable extent. 
These men who do prize shooting are, as a rule, in the 
habit of using clay pigeons. The birds we are trying to 
protect are rarely used for such purposes. Domestic 
pigeons are used for that purpose and also clay pigeons 
or glass balls. 

Mr. Robinson of Indiana. I desire to say to the gen- 
tleman from Iowa, while I have not read the bill very 
carefully, that I think it comes very close to producing 
a conflict between the states, over their jurisdiction in 
these matters, and the federal government. I ask the 
gentleman if that is not true? 

Mr. Lacey. Not at all. 

Mr. Robinson of Indiana. I also should like to have 
an explanation of that to see how the gentleman's in- 
genuity has gotten around that difficulty. 

Mr. Lacey. There is no difficulty whatever. The au- 
thority of the national government begins where the 
state authority ends. The bill carefully avoids all con- 
flicts of this character. It begins when animals or birds 
are loaded upon the cars to be shipped to a point outside 
of the state. When they are thus transported, for in- 



ADDRESSES OF MAJOR LACEY 149 

stance, from a point in Indiana to Chicago or Cincinnati, 
the local game wardens, endeavoring to protect the birds 
of your state, find themselves powerless, because the 
birds are not seen of men after they are once packed un- 
til they turn up in the markets of one of the cities. The 
state law is thus nullified. This provision enables the 
persons enforcing the state law to show, first, that the 
birds were killed in violation of the state law; second, 
that they have been shipped by interstate commerce to 
another state. Then the national law comes in and for- 
bids the shipment, and in this manner the state law is 
supplemented. Thus it is made effective at the very 
point where, by reason of the limited area of the state, 
the state law today is inoperative and ineffective. 

I love the people who love birds. The man or the 
woman who does not love birds ought to be classed with 
the person who has no love for music — fit only "for 
treason, stratagem, and spoils." I would love to have a 
solo singer in every bush and a choir of birds in every 
tree top. At my own home I have set out Russian mul- 
berries for the birds alone. The Russian mulberry be- 
gins to ripen while the blossoms are still coming out, and 
for three months there are blossoms and black fruit upon 
the same tree. If you want to be popular with the birds 
of your community, set out some of these mulberries, and 
they will come from every quarter to the place where 
these trees are. The man who cultivates the birds will 
have the birds take care of him. They will care for his 
farm. They will destroy the insect pests, and the man 
who protects them will be successful wherever he may 
farm in the United States of America. 

Me. Shackleford. What about the birds that pick the 
cherries f 

Mr. Lacey. Every bird that eats a cherry earns ten 
cherries before he eats one. 



150 MAJOR JOHN F. LACEY 

Me. Clark of Missouri. Have you any way of keeping 
them from eating the cherries ? 

Mr. Lacey. No one should ever begrudge a cherry to 
a woodpecker or a robin. He has made the cherry pos- 
sible before he takes it. He has done more toward its 
fruition than the man who set out the tree, because he has 
protected it from the pests that destroy it. 

Unless some other question is asked, I ask that the bill 
be read by sections for amendment. 

Mr. Cummings. Will the gentleman inform us, in a 
few words, what birds this bill does not protect? 

Mr. Lacey. It protects only those birds that are pro- 
tected by local laws. If the state of New York protects 
a certain kind of birds, interstate commerce in the dead 
bodies of those birds is forbidden, so that nothing is taken 
from the powers of the state. The sound judgment of 
the legislatures of the states really control this matter 
after all, and this bill merely builds upon the foundation 
that is first laid by the state legislature. 

Mr. Gaines. Why do you confine it to states that pro- 
hibit the killing of robins, for instance? Could not this 
apply just as well between states that do not prohibit 
their killing as between states that do? 

Mr. Lacey. In order to do that it would become neces- 
sary to enact a national law, which, I think, would be 
unconstitutional. By limiting it to the prohibition of 
interstate commerce in those things which the state pro- 
hibits, then we have clear ground, and there is no trouble 
on the subject. Every state in the Union is today legis- 
lating as well as it can to perfect the general purpose had 
in view by this bill. 

Mr. Adamson. The gentleman has not read his amend- 
ment yet. 

Mr. Lacey. No. 

Mr. Adamson. I suppose I may as well call your at- 



ADDRESSES OF MAJOR LACEY 151 

tention to it now as at any other time. I have looked at 
the gentleman's amendment. Does he wish to have it 
read now? 

Mk. Lacey. I mil read the amendment. I propose, in 
lieu of section 5, the following : 

Sec. 5. That all dead bodies, or parts thereof, of any foreign 
game animals, or game or song birds, the importation of which 
is prohibited, or the dead bodies, or parts thereof, of any wild 
game animals, or game or song birds, transported into any state 
or territory, or remaining therein for use, consumption, sale, or 
storage therein, shall upon arrival in such state or territory be 
subject to the operation and effect of the laws of such state or 
territory enacted in the exercise of its police powers, to the same 
extent and in the same manner as though such animals or birds 
had been produced in such state or territory, and shall not be 
exempt therefrom by reason of being introduced therein in or- 
iginal packages or otherwise. This act shall not prevent the im- 
portation, transportation, or sale of birds or bird plumage manu- 
factured from the feathers of barnyard fowl. 

Now, in a word let me explain that in the city of New 
York and in the state of New York, where they have rigid 
laws, market men import grouse from Scotland, hang up 
the grouse out in front of the store, and, while apparently 
selling Scotch game, they are in fact selling grouse killed 
in the Adirondacks or in the state of New York ; but they 
use these foreign birds as a "fence," just as in some 
localities some dealers use their business as a "fence." 
Some merchants shelter themselves behind a legitimate 
business in order to transact an illegal business. We 
have rigid state laws in every state prohibiting the re- 
ceiving of stolen goods. Now, in New York they tell me 
that concealed behind a Scotch deer or perhaps Scotch 
birds they are selling native birds. The only way to 
prevent them from doing so is to prohibit the selling of 
foreign birds. When birds are shipped into a state at a 
time when the state statutes prohibit them from being 



152 MAJOR JOHN F. LACEY 

killed and a man is arrested, lie says, "They were shipped 
under interstate commerce, and you cannot interfere with 
me." 

This proposed section is copied from the Wilson orig- 
inal package act, which has stood the test of judicial crit- 
icism. It will enable the state of New York to treat 
Scotch game or foreign game precisely as it would its own 
game when it arrives in the state, and thus protect against 
the foreign game being used as a screen to sell the local 
game. 

Me. Adamson. I want to ask you a question — not 
about the provision about domestic fowls, nor the pro- 
vision as to foreign animals and birds, but other language 
in your proposed amendment. It relates to the sale of 
game animals and birds transported into any state or 
territory, and remaining there for use, consumption, sale, 
or storage therein. I presume that has application, for 
instance, to birds or game killed in Virginia and shipped 
into Maryland or other states under interstate commerce. 

Mr. Lacey. Yes. 

Mr. Adamson. Now, as I understand your amendment, 
it would be a violation of the law to ship and sell these 
birds or animals in another state, although it was lawful 
to kill them and sell them at the time they were killed. 

Mr. Lacey. Certainly, as to the shipment. It will 
simply do this: Suppose the closed season in Virginia 
commences on the 1st of December, and the closed season 
in Georgia is the 1st of October. Now, it will be lawful 
to ship animals and birds from Virginia into the District 
of Columbia and Baltimore longer than it would be from 
Georgia, because the closed season is different; and the 
man that receives and handles them must know that he is 
dealing with something that has not been killed in viola- 
tion of the state law from which the game comes. The 
state law would protect the state of Georgia from the 



ADDRESSES OF MAJOR LACEY 153 

destruction of the birds in Georgia, in which every Geor- 
gian is interested, when they are killed in violation of 
laws of your state. 

This bill will prevent the evasion of the state law by 
the shipment of the game for sale in another state. 

Mr. Adamson. Still, if you think it will be valid, do 
you think it would be wise to provide that game and 
birds legally killed in a state where they exist can not be 
sold in any other state or territory? 

Mr. Lacey. That is left wholly with the states. This 
bill does not attempt to interfere ; it leaves it so that the 
state may do so if the state thinks best. Suppose at At- 
lanta they want to prevent the sale of quails between the 
1st of October and the 1st of February, or after the 1st 
day of February and down to October. Now, you find 
by shipping Florida or Virginia quails at the same time 
your local laws are nullified, because they can not dis- 
tinguish between them. In order to protect your own 
birds, you say no such birds killed anywhere shall be sold 
within that period. This bill does not attempt to do more 
than to enable your state to do this, notwithstanding the 
original package decisions, which have in the city of New 
York been utilized to destroy the state law. 

In New York they have precisely such a state law as I 
suggested ; they have attempted to prevent the sale of all 
wild birds out of certain seasons, although they were 
killed lawfully in the state or foreign countries from 
which they came, and the courts have held that as they 
came in under interstate commerce, and as Congress has 
not passed any original package law applying to game, 
the laws are inoperative, and it is at their request that 
this prohibition is inserted in the bill. 



BISON PRESERVE * 

The committee on the public lands, to whom was re- 
ferred the bill (H. R. 6062) to set apart a preserve for 
American bison, and for other purposes, beg leave to sub- 
mit the following report, and recommend the accompany- 
ing substitute for the bill. 

Charles Mair, of the Royal Canadian Society, in May, 
1890, made the following statement : 

There is, perhaps, no fact in the natural history of America 
which brings such reproach on civilized man as the reckless and 
almost total destruction of the bison. . . At this time there 
are in all probability not five hundred animals alive on the con- 
tinent. 

When America w T as discovered, the American Indians, 
measured by their flocks and herds, were as opulent as 
any people on the globe. The bison w r as the common 
property of all. He took care of himself both winter and 
summer, and furnished a never-failing supply of food 
and raiment for the aborigines. Through inconceivable 
ages this animal had become adapted to the soil, climate, 
and surroundings. The bison is the most typical Ameri- 
can of all of the indigenous beasts on the continent. 

In 1832 the last of the bison was killed east of the Mis- 
sissippi River. Before the development of the railroads 
vast herds of these animals avoided the destructive ef- 
fects of the white settlements by emigration to the Far 
West, and down to as late as 1870 they still numbered 
very many millions. The building of the Pacific railroad 

i April 10, 1900. Mr. Lacey, from the committee on the public lands, 
submitted the report to accompany H. E. 10590. 



ADDRESSES OF MAJOR LACEY 155 

was the signal for the destruction of these vast herds. 
They were slaughtered without mercy, for sport and for 
profit. 

The most pitiful story in the history of all animal life 
is Prof. William T. Hornaday's report on the extinction 
of the American bison. The mania for slaughter seems 
to have affected everyone. The English lord, the miner, 
the cowboy, and the emigrant slew right and left, dotting 
the plains with thousands upon thousands of tons of 
bleaching bones that have since been gathered up and 
transported to the sugar refineries on the Atlantic coast. 
These herds, that could have readily been converted into 
domestic animals and preserved as a permanent source 
of wealth, have been literally swept from the face of the 
earth. 

The cattle which have taken their place are unable to 
withstand the rigors and severity of the changeable cli- 
mate. Where the bison turned his head to the storm and 
fought it out with the blizzard, the American cattle of 
today turn tail to the wind and drift to destruction. The 
bison was clothed expressly to resist the severity of the 
climate in which he was living. Prehistoric man, in his 
long warfare against the mammoth, left not one to tell 
the tale. Necessity for food, no doubt, was his excuse, 
and the slow breeding of these gigantic beasts made the 
extermination comparatively easy. When America was 
discovered the bison was the king of American beasts. 
By ages of gradual modification and natural selection an 
animal was developed fitted in the most admirable way 
for a life in the vast region from Hudson Bay and Great 
Slave Lake to the Gulf of Mexico. 

The United States government has tardily attempted to 
preserve some of the wonders of nature on the continent. 
The word "extinction" does not quite literally apply to 
the bison, but we have arrived at a point where nothing 



156 MAJOR JOHN F. LACEY 

but heroic treatment will prevent the animal from joining 
the dodo, the great auk, and the mammoth. 

Professor Hornaday thinks that there are at present 
400 living buffalo in the whole world. The herd of the 
Flathead Indians, the "Buffalo Jones" herd, the Good- 
night herd, the Corbin herd, a few specimens here and 
there in zoological parks, remnants still of perhaps twen- 
ty in the Yellowstone National Park, and a few scattered 
"wood buffalo" west of Hudson Bay embrace all that are 
left of the countless millions of a generation ago. 

Col. C. J. Jones was engaged with others in the general 
slaughter which nearly exterminated the buffalo. He 
realized that very soon there would not be a living speci- 
men of this wonderful animal, and he attempted to pre- 
serve at least a small herd from destruction. He ac- 
cordingly went systematically about the capturing of 
calves, driving with him milch cows to preserve the little 
captives, and he has at present about 100, the descendants 
of these captured calves. It is gratifying to find that his 
humane experiment was not unprofitable. The govern- 
ment tried to save 400 of these animals in Yellowstone 
Park, but in that high altitude, with its rigorous weather 
and the relentless destruction of the animals when they 
wandered beyond the limits of the park, it is not probable 
that there are more than twenty still alive. The climate 
of the Yellowstone Park, the high altitude, and the heavy 
snows there have all proven great barriers to the preser- 
vation or propagation of these animals. 

In a more favorable climate, with adequate protection 
and opportunity for ranging, breeding may be success- 
fully carried on. Experience has shown that in close con- 
finement most of the calves are males, but on the open 
range, under more natural conditions, the birthrate of 
the two sexes is about equal. If no one were now willing 
and able to try the experiment of restoring a sufficient 



ADDRESSES OF MAJOR LACEY 157 

number of these animals to insure them from total ex- 
tinction, it would be the duty of a great government like 
ours, regardless of expense, to do whatever could rea- 
sonably be done to that end. Thousands of dollars have 
been spent in vain in the mistaken effort at the Yellow- 
stone. Colonel Jones called attention to the dangers of 
that experiment, and offered to round up and save them 
from destruction; but the offer was rejected, and head- 
hunters, wolves, and the failure to breed have almost 
annihilated this herd. 

Practically all the animals with which to try this ex- 
periment of domesticating the buffalo are under the con- 
trol of Colonel Jones. We recognize the fact that the 
buffalo, like the Indian, must be domesticated or disap- 
pear; but it is also true that an adequate home must be 
found for the few remaining, or else they can not be pro- 
tected and preserved. After a few generations of domes- 
tication their breeding can no doubt be carried on without 
the broad range that now seems necessary. To turn these 
animals out on the plains of any of the western states or 
territories to take their chances with domestic cattle would 
result in their destruction. A range sufficiently large and 
at the same time fenced in should be provided for that 
purpose. The owner of this herd is willing to bear all the 
expense of this experiment and asks no government aid. 
He can not turn these animals out on the open range 
•without danger of their entire loss. 

In New Mexico the buffalo finds his natural home, both 
summer and winter. There remain vast areas of unoccu- 
pied public lands where the buffalo formerly roamed and 
bred with much f ruitf ulness. Out of the 600,000,000 acres 
remaining of the public lands it is proposed by this bill 
to set apart a tract of 20,000 acres ; not free of charge, as 
the sheep and cattle men now use the land, but subject to 
a nominal rental of one cent an acre, and also two buffalo 



158 MAJOR JOHN F. LACEY 

in kind which are to be delivered to the Government each 
year, for the use of the public parks. 

Owing to a misunderstanding of the boundaries the 
original bill provided for an unnecessarily large area, 
and the hostility of the sheep and cattle men was at once 
aroused. The committee in reporting back this bill have 
cut the amount down to such dimensions that we believe 
the bill would meet the approval of even these interested 
parties. The addition of this herd of buffalo, instead of 
being an injury to New Mexico, will be of positive advan- 
tage, because it adds an additional industry, or, rather, 
restores one which has been destroyed. The lease is a 
temporary one, and runs but for twenty years. If it is 
found that the animals sufficiently increase under this 
arrangement the lease could be renewed, otherwise there 
would be no harm done in terminating it. 

George Bird Grinnell, in 1892, estimated the Yellow- 
stone buffalo at 400, and reported that they were increas- 
ing. The writer of this report visited the Yellowstone 
last summer, and from the best information he could get 
there were not to exceed twenty-three still alive. At $10 
a head the 10,000,000 of these animals that existed only 
a few years ago would be worth $100,000,000. 

In 1873 Congress passed a law to protect the buffalo, 
but the President of the United States failed to sign it 
and it did not become a law. The failure to sign this bill 
might be called another "crime of '73." An action then 
would have been in time. The failure to act now in this 
matter will be fatal. We believe that the government 
should make this experiment. It ought to be made, even 
if it had to be made entirely at public expense, but under 
the plan proposed by this bill the government will not 
expend a single dollar. The land to be used for the pur- 
pose is public land. It belongs to the people. The whole 
people of the United States are concerned in saving our 



ADDRESSES OF MAJOR LACEY 159 

nation from the reproach of allowing the entire extinc- 
tion of the American bison. Our children's children 
would curse us, and they ought to, if we do not prevent 
this reproach on the American people from being con- 
summated. 

There is another important feature connected with this 
experiment. Domestic cows can be placed on this range 
and crossed with the buffalo bulls. This is no longer an 
experiment. The product of this cross is an animal with 
a coat heavy enough to resist the severest western winter 
storm. This, however, is only an incident to the real 
purpose of the plan, as there would be no attempt made 
to breed from the female buffalo anything but the pure- 
blooded bison. The addition would be made by breeding 
domestic cows, and so the production of the pure bloods 
would not be in this manner decreased. 

Your committee earnestly recommend the prompt pas- 
sage of the substitute for the bill. 



HOW TO SAVE OUR BIRDS AND MAMMALS x 

Mr. Toastmaster and Gentlemen: 

I am delighted to meet so many of the lovers of wild 
American birds, beasts, and fishes from so many states 
and territories here tonight. The attempt to preserve 
any of our native resources of this character comes very 
late, but I hope not too late. It is proposed to lock the 
stable door before the horses are all stolen. During my 
own service in Congress it has been my fortune, on tb^ 
committee on public lands, to do what I could to aid in the 
saving of our remaining forests from utter destruction, 
and the good work done in that line is already bearing 
fruit. Let the forests be wholly destroyed and the cli- 
mate becomes entirely changed. The streams dry up 
and agriculture, the foundation of all our wealth, suffers 
irreparable injury. The streams are the children of the 
forests, and the fish are the children of the streams. In 
my childhood the brooks of my native state, West Vir- 
ginia, and her sister state, Ohio, were full of pools, and 
the hillside gushed with living springs. The forests have 
been destroyed and all this is changed. 

The deadly hand of man is committing the same crime 
in the Far West. On my first visit to Oregon thirteen 
years ago I got off the cars at The Dalles to take the boat 
down the Columbia. As I walked out on the pier some- 
one shouted to me with great excitement : 

"Run this way quick and you will see Mt. Hood!" 

i At Aldine Club, New York City, February 14, 1900. Speech of John 
F. Laeey, M. C, at the dinner of the League of American Sportsmen. 



ADDRESSES OF MAJOR LACEY 161 

I said laughingly, "There is no danger of the mountain 
running away, is there?" and the answer came, 

1 ' Come quick, if you want to see it. ' ' 

I ran out, and there in the clear light stood the beauti- 
ful, snowy peak. I watched it for probably thirty sec- 
onds, when the cloud of smoke rolled back over it again, 
obscuring it from view, and that was the first, last, and 
only time I ever saw Mt. Hood. Last summer I revisited 
the same locality and did not even get a half-minute 
glimpse of the mountain. The region was clouded with 
smoke of the burning fore,sts just as it had been on my 
first visit in 1887. 

With fire and ax the destroyer has been doing his work. 
A splendid tree, 300 years old, is attacked with auger and 
coal oil and is swept from the face of the earth for the 
li improvement" of the country; a tree that took from 300 
to 500 years to grow, and which in a few years would be 
worth as much as forty acres of land, has been destroyed 
in a day's time. 

Along the banks of the Columbia fish-wheels have been 
planted, and the salmon packers are diligently engaged 
in the extermination of those beautiful fish. No adequate 
recognition of the necessity for permitting a sufficient 
number to escape seems to exist, but the fish is treated as 
a common enemy rather than as a friend. Such destruc- 
tion of our natural resources has but one end on the Pa- 
cific Coast, as it has had on the Atlantic. 

Terrapin were once so plentiful in Maryland that a law 
was passed prohibiting masters from feeding their slaves 
on this succulent reptile more than twice a week. 

In Connecticut the avaricious master fed his apprentice 
so freely on salmon that a law was passed forbidding so 
much of a fish diet for those unfortunate boys. Now, 
with terrapin worth $5.00 apiece, and salmon at seventy- 
five cents a pound, there is no danger of the excessive use 



162 MAJOR JOHN F. LACEY 

of these articles of diet, unless it be among the million- 
aires. And so it is with all our other natural resources. 
At Delhi natural gas was worshiped by the Greeks 2,300 
years ago. Now it is harnessed and set to work in the 
gas fields of the United States, but a reckless disregard 
for its preservation has been shown in every field, and 
it is only a question of comparatively a short time until 
the gas and the coal oil will take their places in history, 
along with the buffalo, the wild pigeon, the terrapin, and 
the salmon. 

The presence of this assembly tonight indicates that 
the conscience of the American people has been quick- 
ened on these questions. The hunters and the fishermen 
begin to join hands in the preservation of the inhabitants 
of the forests, the air, and the streams. 

St. Paul was the persecutor and destroyer of the saints, 
but he saw a great light, and spent his after life in their 
defense. The birds and the beasts appeal to the sports- 
men who have persecuted them in the past and have not 
appealed in vain. I am talking to gentlemen who may 
have been "game-hogs" or "fish-hogs" in their early 
youth. Every true sportsman outgrows this mania for 
indiscriminate slaughter. No doubt some gentleman here 
has had himself photographed in the past, standing by the 
side of a great string of fish or by a reeking holocaust 
of game. A pot-hunter now might have his picture thus 
taken, but a sportsman, in these days of scarcity, would 
be ashamed to do so. 

I plead guilty to having, in my youth, taken part in the 
brutal pastime known as the "side hunt," where two 
parties start out in the remorseless competition of de- 
stroying as much animal life as possible ; a rabbit count- 
ing so many points, a prairie chicken so many, a blue jay, 
blackbird, crow, and other birds all being scheduled at a 
given number of points. A hunt like this at the evening 



ADDRESSES OF MAJOR LACEY 163 

round-up shows a sickening aggregation of unnecessary 
and unsportsmanlike slaughter. The sportsmen who 
would enforce the laws must obey them himself and set a 
proper example to the rising generation. 

I heard the other day of a dealer in bogus butter, who, 
having been sentenced to fine and imprisonment for his 
offense, remarked, on retiring from the court room, that 
he would not have minded his punishment so much, but 
he disliked to be fined for selling bogus butter by a judge 
who wore dyed whiskers. 

In 1870 I crossed the plains when the buffalo could be 
counted by the thousands. A recent Indian massacre had 
occurred in Colorado, and I was shown the fresh graves 
of a dozen men by the roadside. When the night came 
on and the stage driver lit the lamps of our coach, so as 
to make an especially good target for a hostile arrow, or 
bullet, considerable of the enjoyment of the trip was taken 
away ; but I forget readily the discomfort of that part of 
my journey, and remember with pleasure the herds of 
buffalo, elk, and antelope that enlivened the scene. 

Today I estimate the number of living buffaloes at 400. 
Prof. W. T. Hornaday, who is present, told me a few 
minutes ago that his estimate is 600, and I would not for 
a moment, offer my judgment in contradiction to such 
eminent authority on this question. Thirty years ago a 
difference of 200 in the estimate of a number of living 
buffaloes would have been too small a matter for consid- 
eration, as that would only be about enough to occupy 
some industrious and enterprising killer two or three 
days ; but today there are nearly as many millionaires in 
this city as there are buffaloes in the whole world. The 
natural suggestion is that we are getting long on million- 
aires and short on buffaloes. 

The annihilation of the noblest of all the American 
mammals is one of the crimes of the nineteenth centurv. 



164 MAJOR JOHN F. LACEY 

It took millions of years to evolve and produce this splen- 
did animal. He was especially adapted to the hard life 
on the arid plains of the West. The cattle of the present 
day turn their tails to the wind and drift hopelessly with 
the course of the blizzard. The buffalo turned his head 
to the storm and fought it out with nature, triumphing 
over the wind and the cold for ages upon ages, finally 
succumbing only to the breech-loader and the butcher- 
knife of the skin-hunter of the latter end of the nineteenth 
century. 

But you invited me especially to explain the nature and 
scope of a bill introduced by me in the House of Repre- 
sentatives, to give national assistance to the preservation 
of what remains of our birds and beasts. All states and 
territories have enacted laws in accordance with the pres- 
ent enlightened public sentiment in this direction. These 
laws have been nullified by the pot-hunter, who kills and 
traps the birds and beasts for food for eastern markets, or 
who destroys the insectivorous and the song birds for the 
milliner. It seems strange that from the beautiful hat 
of the tender-hearted woman the mummified bird of song 
should look appealingly, with its glass eye, to the more 
tender heart of the American sportsman for protection. 
Appeals to the women by the Audubon societies thus far 
have been in vain. When on the streets I meet young 
girls and matrons with their kindly faces, and see the 
aigrettes in their bonnets and hats, I can not help feeling 
that these daughters of Eve do not know how these feath- 
ers were obtained. These plumes only grow while the 
bird is rearing its young, and I believe if most of the 
women who wear them knew they were obtained by shoot- 
ing the mother on her nest they would be ashamed to keep 
them, even in secret, much less to display them on the 
public streets. 

The bill (H. R. 6,634) to which I direct your attention 



ADDRESSES OF MAJOR LACEY 165 

gives the secretary of agriculture power to introduce use- 
ful wild birds of all kinds into localities where they have 
become extinct, or in localities where they have hereto- 
fore existed, but it gives him power to prevent the intro- 
duction of injurious foreign varieties of birds and beasts. 

Some time ago a gentleman conversing with me on the 
subject of the English sparrow, which has earned and de- 
serves the reputation of being a common nuisance, called 
my attention to the danger of introducing other birds of 
evil reputation, and suggested to me that we ought by all 
means to prevent the importation of the flying fox or the 
mongoose. He evidently regarded both of them as birds 
of bad repute. In this appeal I have recognized that 
these animals were vermin and ought to be excluded. The 
main feature of the bill, and the one which will be found 
the most useful, is that which prohibits interstate com- 
merce in wild birds and animals killed or captured in 
violation of local laws. At present the state laws are 
rendered almost entirely useless, owing to the fact that 
the poacher kills or traps the game and ships it to a dis- 
tant market in packages so disguised that neither carrier 
nor local game protectors are able to detect the contents. 
When these shipments arrive at the market they are of 
no value unless exposed. If shipped in violation of the 
laws of the states, they can readily be the subject of pros- 
ecution by the authorities charged with the enforcement 
of the laws. This additional power in the hands of men 
engaged in the protection of our birds and beasts will, in 
my opinion, do more to stop this nefarious traffic than 
any method that has yet been devised. 

The farmers of the country who are interested in the 
preservation of their feathered friends will all favor such 
a measure. Concerted action all along the line, by the 
lovers of our birds, will insure the passage of this bill. 

As to the introduction of locally extinct species, or 



166 MAJOR JOHN F. LACEY 

new species, through the Department of Agriculture, I 
can only express my belief. We know that when a game 
club introduces birds they are ruthlessly destroyed by 
persons having no interest in their preservation. The 
newcomers are looked on as being imported for the rec- 
reation of a wealthy gun club, and therefore a proper 
subject of destruction. I hope and believe that a different 
sentiment will be shown when such birds are looked on 
as the subjects of national concern. Every boy and man 
will feel that these strangers are the property of the na- 
tion at large, and that everyone should take an interest 
in seeing that they are suitably protected until such time 
as they may be abundant enough to be the objects of occa- 
sional pursuit. Above all, the protection of our remain- 
ing natural resources must be the subject of an enlighten- 
ed public sentiment. Meetings like this tonight are the 
starting point from which such sentiment may proceed, 
and I am sure the results of this annual meeting of the 
League of American Sportsmen will be seen and felt in all 
the years to come. 

SOME NEW LEAGUE MEMBERS 2 

The Hon. John F. Lacey, member of Congress from 
Iowa, is an old-time sportsman, naturalist, and friend of 
game protection. He tells me that of late his love and his 
sympathy for the birds and the wild animals has almost 
overcome his love of sport, and that he now feels little 
inclination to shoot. He is still fond of the rod and reel, 
and spends many a day on the water during his summer 
vacations. 

He is one of the most ardent workers in Congress, and 
has done a great deal in the interest of game protection. 
As is well known, he is the author of the bill now pending, 

2 Under this heading, in the 'Recreation Magazine, occurs this sketch. 



ADDRESSES OF MAJOR LACEY 167 

which proposes to regulate interstate traffic in game 
through the medium of the Interstate Commerce Commis- 
sion. He also drafted and introduced the bill for the per- 
petuation of the American buffalo, and has done valiant 
service in furthering both of these measures. 

A dinner had been tendered the visiting officers, which 
was given at the rooms of the Aldine Club on the night of 
the 14th, and to which fifty-four members and guests sat 
down. The guest of honor was Hon. John F. Lacey, 
member of Congress from Iowa, who is also a member of 
of this League. He came here from Washington, by 
special invitation of the League, and made the strongest, 
most eloquent and most interesting speech I ever heard 
on the subject of game protection. I will not attempt to 
give even a synopsis of it here, because it is printed in 
full in this issue. 

In the course of Mr. Lacey 's remarks he explained the 
provisions of his bill, No. 6634, now pending in Congress, 
which undertakes to prohibit illegal traffic in game 
through the Interstate Commerce Commission. Mr. 
Lacey was given a perfect ovation, and he may well feel 
proud of his membership in this League. On the other 
hand, the League is honored by having in it a man who 
commands so much respect and attention in both houses 
of Congress as Mr. Lacey does. At this writing there 
seems no doubt that his bill will pass both houses, and 
that it will become a law. 



PROTECTION TO GAME AND BIRDS IN THE 
UNITED STATES x 

The question of game protection and the preservation 
of useful birds has of late years assumed much interest. 
It has always been the custom to lock the stable door af- 
ter the horse is gone. Our ancestors found the land east 
of the Ohio covered with a dense forest, the rivers full of 
fish, and the woods filled with game. 

The first necessity was to destroy the forest so as to 
make way for the farms. 

The abundance of wild life made it seem that the supply 
could never be exhausted. 

For more than three hundred years destruction was 
called "improvement" and it has only in recent years 
come to the attention of the people generally that the 
American people were like spendthrift heirs wasting their 
patrimony. 

The public conscience has become quickened, and the at- 
tempt to preserve and restore some of the wild life of 
America is no longer looked upon as a fad or idle senti- 
ment. A halt has been called upon the wanton waste of 
the forests, and more than a hundred millions of acres of 
public forest lands have been reserved by law for pos- 
terity. 

i John F. Lacey in Boston Transcript. 

Mr. Lacey is the author of much valuable legislation on game and bird 
protection. He is the author of the Yellowstone Park act of 1891 on this 
subject; the Wichita Preserve act; the Alaska game laws; bill setting apart 
bird breeding grounds on certain public islands in the Gulf of Mexico and 
the Lakes; the "Lacey Act," forbidding interstate commerce in game and 
birds killed in violation of law; and, also, many other valuable national 
laws on this subject. — Editor Boston Transcript. 



ADDRESSES OF MAJOR LACEY 169 

In these great national forests the homeless wild crea- 
tures will replenish, if they are only given the oppor- 
tunity. The law should give them that chance. 

The deadly breech-loading guns of the present time 
have placed the extermination of all living things in the 
easy reach of the thoughtless or the mercenary, not even 
being confined to the skillful. 

A bloody-minded Briton a few years ago landed on an 
island on the coast of Alaska and in a few hours left the 
remains of 250 walruses to rot unused, as evidence of his 
prowess. He had assured the future starvation of the 
natives in order to gratify his thirst for blood. 

The pot-hunters and the lover of slaughter for its own 
sake have joined hands in the deadly work of extermina- 
tion. 

The birds which had kept the destructive insects within 
reasonable bounds have been so recklessly destroyed that 
the farmers have taken up the subject and public senti- 
ment has turned to the side of the preservation of the 
birds of the air. Some years ago the writer of this 
article introduced in Congress a bill to nationalize the 
question of game and bird preservation as far as it could 
be done within the limits of the federal constitution. The 
bill was met with more or less derision, and failed of pas- 
sage for a number of years. The public took up the ques- 
tion and pressed it upon the attention of the Congress un- 
til finally on the 25th day of May, 1900, the bill became a 
law and I feel much honored to have had my name con- 
nected with this legislation. 

The act does not attempt to define the terms of pres- 
ervation, but leaves that necessarily with the states them- 
selves. Before the passage of this federal statute birds 
and game were killed in violation of state law and shipped 
to markets beyond the state limits. As articles of com- 
merce they were there exposed to sale with impunity. 



170 MAJOR JOHN F. LACEY 

Under the so-called "Lacey Act" this commerce is un- 
lawful, and birds or game killed in violation of local law 
are not lawful subjects of commerce. 

It is now illegal to ship such game, even when killed in 
season, without having the contents of the packages suit- 
ably and openly labeled. 

When game arrives at its destination after an inter- 
state transit, it at once becomes subject to the local law 
by the terms of this act, and cannot be sold as an article 
of commerce in violation of the local statutes. 

This provision has enabled state game wardens to pre- 
vent the use of imported game as a shelter behind which 
local game might also be sold. 

Not long before the passage of this law, I saw a large 
hogshead opened in the Washington market and it was 
completely filled with frozen prairie chickens from Kan- 
sas. 

There were nearly 1,000 of these frozen birds in this 
single package. 

They were killed and shipped in violation of the Kansas 
law, and the crime had been concealed in Kansas. But at 
the end of the journey they had come out in the open 
market, and under the present federal law the shippers 
would have been confronted with the dreadful national 
power. 

The state of Wyoming has of its accord created a game 
refuge in a part of the state adjacent to the Yellowstone. 
It is a good example to follow. 

The Wichita Forest Eeserve in Oklahoma has been by 
law declared a game refuge. 

In urging this latter bill before Congress but little op- 
position was met with, and the people of Oklahoma are 
united in their approval of the law. It gives the people 
there a source of supply, which by natural overflow, will 



ADDRESSES OF MAJOR LACEY 171 

restore much of the game and birds formerly so plen- 
tiful. 

The Yellowstone Park is a great educator along the 
line of protection of wild life. The thousands of tourists 
who visit the wonderland view the confiding and tame 
creatures there with as much pleasure as they look upon 
the periodic display of the Old Faithful geyser. 

In that "Animal Republic" its citizens have learned 
that by some mysterious influence the great butcher, Man, 
is a harmless and interesting creature. 

That influence is the Law. 

The children watch the feeding of the gentle grizzly, 
the Ursus horribilis of the naturalist. 

The beaver is again building his dams and setting up 
his little municipal governments in this great national 
playground. 

Every visitor to the park comes back a friend of the 
native wild life of America. 

Utility goes hand in hand with sentiment in bird pres- 
ervation and the American farmers with almost one ac- 
cord have enlisted in the cause of bird protection and the 
result is already becoming manifest in the great increase 
of feathered life. 

And the farmers have their reward, not only in the 
beauty of the feathered life which is becoming more nu- 
merous, but in the protection to all vegetable life from 
the ravages of insect pests. 



BIRD PROTECTION 1 

Mankind are becoming aroused at last to the importance 
of protecting what has been spared of the birds and game 
once so plentiful. Even in darkest Africa the great pow- 
ers of Europe, which have partitioned the wilderness 
among them, have recently made rules and regulations to 
prevent the indiscriminate slaughter of the remaining 
creatures of the forest. In America the subject has 
claimed consideration, but our people have been too busy 
in the struggle for wealth for the individual to give ade- 
quate attention to the preservation of our natural re- 
sources. Our coal, gas, oil, forests, fishes, birds, and 
game have been wasted and destroyed with a recklessness 
utterly unworthy of so intelligent and progressive a peo- 
ple. It is high time to call a halt. With a favorable and 
enlightened public sentiment nothing can fail. Without 
it nothing can succeed. 

When several years ago the writer attempted to attract 
national attention to bird and game protection, the prop- 
osition was received with mirthful raillery in Congress. A 
distinguished representative, since then elected governor 
of his state, said that "Congress could be in better busi- 
ness than in discussing the question of raising goslings." 
But persistent effort has won, and the work of the League 
of American Sportsmen and the Audubon societies, sup- 
ported by the farmers and fruit growers, created such a 
sentiment as to make it possible to secure the enactment 
of a federal law supplementing and making effective the 
local laws of the various states. Even a majority of the 

i John F. Lacey in the World Review. 



ADDRESSES OF MAJOR LACEY 173 

members from the state whose governor had seen only 
amusement in the idea, voted for the bill. 

Local laws had been evaded by the shipment of game 
and birds killed in their violation, by placing them on the 
market in other states. Under the new national law, com- 
monly known as the ' ' Lacey Act, ' ' this can be prevented, 
because the interstate transportation of the birds and 
game killed in violation of local laws is made illegal and 
punishable in the federal courts. 

The violator of the state law meets with no profit in the 
secret breaking of the law of his own state, because when 
he ships the fruits of his lawlessness to another state for 
sale in the open market, he finds that while he has escaped 
the sheriff at home, he runs into the arms of the United 
States marshal. 

The magnitude of this nefarious business may be under- 
stood when it is known that in a single seizure, recently 
made in Chicago, more than twenty thousand birds were 
confiscated. Thousands of pairs of birds, migrating to 
their northern summer breeding grounds, had been killed 
and sent to market in defiance of state laws in this one 
instance. 

Before the enactment of the national law, this seizure 
would not have been practicable, because the dealers 
would have claimed that the killing had occurred in an- 
other state and would have sheltered themselves under 
the cloak of commerce. The parties could not have been 
punished in the state where the birds were killed, because 
they had committed the offense secretly and concealed 
their identity in making the shipment. 

By destroying the market the temptation to break the 
state laws was removed. It is this feature of the federal 
law which makes it effective. The various state game 
wardens should now be able to watch the markets and 
prevent the unseasonable sale of all kinds of game. It is 



174 MAJOR JOHN F. LACEY 

of no avail to the pot-hunter to kill birds if he cannot sell 
them, and he cannot market them without shipment, and 
when illegally shipped they become subject to seizure. 

The legislatures of the various states are now awake 
to the necessity of preserving our remaining birds and 
game from extinction. 



STATEMENT ON GAME PROTECTION l 

The preservation of migratory birds is one of extreme 
difficulty under our system of government. 

Each spring they begin their annual journey to the far 
north where they spend the summer generally undis- 
turbed. 

In their northern journey water-fowl are usually lean 
and emaciated and not suited for food. Killing them at 
that season is wasteful in the extreme. 

As they pass from state to state over a thickly inhab- 
ited country, a constant and destructive fusillade gives 
them a deadly welcome. 

Each pair of birds if undisturbed will bring back a 
large following in the autumn. 

The killing of a pair of ducks in March means a short- 
age of fifteen or twenty at the end of the season. 

The states should by concerted action forbid all killing 
of these birds in their spring migration. 

It would also seem, as no adequate state laws will en- 
sure such protection, that the general government in its 
power to legislate for the mutual benefit of all the states, 
might constitutionally protect these birds by an act of 
Congress, forbidding all shooting of migratory birds dur- 
ing the period of their spring migration. Certainly such 
a law would be most desirable, if constitutional. 

This important subject has recently been submitted to 
the Department of Justice for an official opinion. 

Concurrent and uniform state action being imprac- 

i By John F. Lacey. 



176 MAJOR JOHN F. LACEY 

ticable, it is very desirable that national legislation should 
be adopted, if within the authority of Congress. 

We wall await with interest the opinion of the attorney- 
general upon this proposition. 

The last pigeon roost that we have any account of was 
in the Indian territory, and now it is a debatable question 
as to whether or not these beautiful birds are wholly ex- 
tinct. An occasional report conies from Michigan, New 
York, and Mexico, that some of them have been seen, but 
the number is always small and the accuracy of the re- 
ports in doubt. The millions of these birds, which once 
darkened the air, have disappeared. It is to be hoped 
that the reports of a few small remaining flocks may 
prove to be true. 

Only about 1,000 buffalo still remain on the planet. The 
new government herd in the Yellowstone has increased 
from twenty-one to about fifty-six, showing the possibility 
of the restoration of these animals in the forest reserves. 

A new buffalo herd for the Wichita Reserve has been 
provided for and there should be five or six more small 
herds started in different forest reserves so as to insure 
the continuation of this finest of all the North American 
mammals. 

The journalists of the country have intelligently and 
earnestly taken up the subject of game and bird preserva- 
tion and an enlightened public sentiment on this question 
will make the enforcement of the law comparatively easy. 

A few years ago it was sure death for a deer or ante- 
lope to pass out of the Yellowstone Park into the vicinity 
of the town of Gardiner. 

Now you may see photographs of 1,400 antelope feed- 
ing undisturbed in an alfalfa pasture at the very edge of 
the town. 

They are regarded as one of the town's attractions and 
woe be to the man who raises his hand against them. 



ADDRESSES OF MAJOR LACEY 177 

The deer, antelope, buffalo, and birds of the Wichita 
Reserve in like manner will be regarded as the common 
property of all the people of Oklahoma for preservation, 
not for destruction. 



FEDERAL PROTECTION OF MIGRATORY BIRDS ' 

The question of protecting migratory birds by federal 
statute is attracting considerable interest and the Weeks 
bill, for that purpose, is now under discussion by Con- 
gress. 

It is hard to define open and closed season properly, 
where the area to be considered is as vast as the United 
States. The scope and purpose of the Weeks bill is on 
lines greatly to be desired : Congressman Weeks seeks in 
his bill to avoid the difficulty arising out of the large area 
of territory involved, and the difference in the seasons, 
by leaving the matter as to dates and area of protection 
wholly to departmental regulation. It is proposed that 
the dates of closed seasons in different latitudes should 
be scheduled, and that a violation of such regulations 
should be criminally punished. This involves a difficult 
question that has been often discussed in the courts, and 
where some of the judges have held that the violation of 
a departmental regulation cannot be made a crime. This 
question, I believe, can be avoided in the preparation of 
a national statute. 

Hon. George Shiras 3d, formerly in Congress, has 
taken a profound interest in this subject, and has given it 
much study. As the writer has had considerable experi- 
ence in the preparation of legislation relating to federal 
game protection, I was requested several years ago to 
draft a bill on the subject that might obviate as far as 
possible the legal difficulties involved. 

Assuming that under "general welfare clause" of the 
Constitution of the United States, it is in the power of 

i By Hon. John F. Lacey in Field and Stream. 



ADDRESSES OF MAJOR LACEY 179 

Congress to deal with interstate problems and to do for 
the states what they cannot separately do successfully 
among themselves, I then prepared a bill on the subject. 

The main purpose of a bill to protect migratory birds 
is to prevent their slaughter when going to their annual 
breeding grounds in the north. If the "spring shooting" 
could be successfully prevented by separate state legisla- 
tion, or by a general federal statute, great results would 
be achieved. The killing of a wild bird, in poor flesh and 
not in condition for food, on its way to its summer breed- 
ing ground, is an unsportsmanlike act. If it is prac- 
ticable to legally prevent such slaughter it should be done. 
The question is one of method. 

I was of the opinion that the difficulty could be met by 
a general statute prohibiting the killing or capture of 
migratory wild-fowl while engaged in their spring migra- 
tion to the north. Such law should protect the birds while 
the migration is in progress, regardless of the exact 
period of the spring season, so that the dates need not be 
fixed by regulation. Some years the migration may be 
several weeks earlier than in other years. The law mak- 
ing a closed season in favor of migratory birds during 
the time of their flight to the north would be an elastic 
proposition and cover the period of actual migration, 
whether late or early, and whether short or prolonged by 
weather. It appeals to the hunter, for if these birds can 
be protected during the spring flight, the fall shooting- 
would then be worth while. As to insect-destroying birds, 
they should be protected at all times and at all seasons, 
and the state authorities are joining in local protection ; 
but it will be of further aid to protect this class of birds 
in migration. 

The bill that I finally prepared was in substance limited 
to spring migration, and drawn so as to protect the birds 
during the varying periods of their northward progress. 



180 MAJOR JOHN F. LACEY 

The period of protection might vary, but the actual time 
would always be susceptible of proof. 

In this form the proposition is an exceedingly simple 
one, and that is at least one of its merits. It is easily 
understood; its purpose is so evidently a good one that 
public sentiment can readily be rallied around it and with 
such sentiment success will be assured. The bill I sug- 
gest is in full accord with the purposes of the Weeks bill, 
and I submit it to the consideration of the readers of 
Field and Stream, and to all friends of the birds in Con- 
gress. 

A BILL TO PROTECT CERTAIN MIGRATORY WILD BIRDS DURING 
THEIR SPRING MIGRATION 

Be it enacted, By the Senate and House of Represent- 
atives of the United States of America in Congress as- 
sembed : 

Section 1. That from and after the passage of this act 
it shall be unlawful anywhere in the United States or the 
territories thereof or in the District of Columbia to shoot, 
trap, snare, capture, injure, or kill any of the following 
named migratory birds during the period of their north- 
ern migration in the spring of the year: ducks, geese, 
brant, swans, rail, snipe, pigeons, doves, woodcock, plover, 
or other waterfowl commonly classed and known as game 
birds, whether herein named or not; also robins, blue- 
birds, woodpeckers, or other insectivorous, migratory 
wild birds, whether named herein or not. 

Section 2. Any one violating this act shall be guilty 
of a misdemeanor, and upon conviction shall be punished 
by fine not exceeding two hundred dollars ($200), or by 
imprisonment not exceeding sixty (60) days. The pos- 
session of any such birds, or the bodies or parts thereof, 
during the period of such spring migration, shall be pre- 
sumptive evidence of the violation of this act as against 
the person or persons in possession. 



ARE PRAIRIE CHICKENS MIGRATORY BIRDS 

New York, April 11, 1913. 

My dear Major Lacey : I am anxiously awaiting your 
reply to my question as to whether you consider the 
prairie chicken a migratory bird. I hope you may write 
me a strong letter that I can send to Dr. Palmer. 

I have one such from a man who lives in Manitoba and 
who has studied and photographed the prairie chicken 
for years past. He says the birds all leave there in the 
fall, move south and return in the spring. 

I am trying to convince Dr. Palmer that it (the prairie 
chicken) may be logically classed as a migratory bird 
and he says it can not. Dr. Hornaday agrees with me 
emphatically, and I hope you may. Yours sincerely, 

(Signed) G. 0. Shields. 
Maj. John F. Lacey, 

Oshaloosa, Iowa. 



PROTECTION OF PRAIRIE CHICKENS 

Oskaloosa, Iowa, April 10, 1913. 
Dr. T. 8. Palmer, 

Department of Agriculture, 
Washington, D. C. 

Dear Friend : Our mutual friend, Col. G. 0. Shields, 
suggests that prairie chickens ought to be protected as 
migratory birds. 

Allow me to suggest what the facts are so far as Iowa 
is concerned. In the northwestern part of the state there 
are still a few birds there. In the eastern and southern 
part of the state there are none of them whatever breed- 
ing in that locality. But in the winter very good flocks 
are often seen. Last winter there were flocks of several 
hundred that visited Mahaska county (where I live) and 
were reported by farmers and others as having remained 
some little time with us. The same was true the year be- 
fore. The year before I think their migration was caused 
by the intense severity of the winter and the depth of the 
snows, and they were driven south hunting for food. 
Last winter we had one of the mildest winters ever known 
but the birds did not seem to remain, though they had 
come back to us on a visit. They seem to have gone back 
to North and South Dakota and western Iowa and Minne- 
sota to breed. 

If any additional protection could be given to these 
birds under the McLeon act it certainly would be a proper 
thing to do. Yours truly, 

John F. Lacey. 



TWO LETTERS FROM EX-PRESIDENT 
ROOSEVELT 

The White House 
Washington 

Oyster Bay, N. Y., July 16, 1906. 
My dear Mr. Lacey : Certain gentlemen interested in 
the preservation of the forests of this country, and also 
interested, though to a less degree, in the preservation of 
the wild life of the country, and the objects of natural 
and historic interest which should be kept unharmed for 
the sake of those who come after us, have written to me 
expressing their deep sense of obligation to you for all 
that you have done in Congress to further these matters. 
They have spoken to me of presenting some memorial to 
you so that their sense of appreciation may be put in 
permanent form. I do not know whether this will be 
done, but I sympathize so cordially with their feelings 
that I desire to take advantage of this occasion to write 
you and say how much it means to any man who believes 
in hard, intelligent, and disinterested public service to 
see such a career as yours has been in Congress. It has 
been my privilege to be closely associated with you and to 
watch the many different ways in which, without any hope 
or expectation of personal reward, you have rendered 
efficient public service. I give utterance to the feelings 
of very many men when I express to you my cordial 
thanks and extend to you my earnest good wishes. 
Sincerely yours, 

(Signed) Theodore Roosevelt. 
Hon. John F. Lacey, M. C. 
Oskaloosa, Iowa. 



184 MAJOR JOHN F. LACEY 

The White House 
Washington 

Oyster Bay, N. Y., June 22, 1907. 
Dear Mr. Lacey : I thank you for your letter of the 
19th instant. Yes, I saw some passenger pigeons at Al- 
bemarle. It was such an utterly unexpected sight that I 
should, have felt a hesitancy in mentioning the fact if it 
were not that another man saw them also on another oc- 
casion. I saw a flock of about a dozen. He saw two 
small flocks — the second, however, larger than the one I 
saw. 

I have asked, for Mershon's new book on the passenger 
pigeon. 

With all good wishes, believe me, 
Sincerely yours, 

(Signed) Theodore Roosevelt. 
Hon. John F. Lacey, M. C. 
Oskaloosa, Iowa. 



A LETTER ON MIGRATORY BIRDS 

Oskaloosa, Iowa, December 3, 1910. 
Hon. John W. Weeks, M. C. 
Washington, D. C. 

Dear Weeks : I have been noticing your bill to protect 
migratory birds, and feel very much interested in its suc- 
cess. 

I had this matter up some years ago and got Mr. Wads- 
worth, chairman of the committee on agriculture, to write 
a communication to the attorney-general asking a legal 
opinion as to the constitutionality of such measure ; and 
then saw President Roosevelt, who talked to the attorney- 
general and urged an immediate and careful examination 
of the question. 

As you are aware, it is a somewhat difficult one, and 
the attorney-general never reported on the subject. 

I first attempted to draw a bill along the lines of the 
present Weeks bill, but Judge Welborn, in California, and 
other judges on the Pacific Coast, held that a crime could 
not be carved out of a violation of a departmental regula- 
tion. When these decisions were made the government 
could not appeal ; their only way to get the matter in the 
Supreme Court would be to get some court to rule the 
other way and have the defendant appeal. Since then 
Congress has passed a law authorizing the government 
to take an appeal, but I am not aware of any case having 
been brought up under it, on the subject of departmental 
regulation ; though I have not recently examined the de- 
cisions with this matter in view. 

I concluded that a practical prohibition of shooting, 



186 MAJOR JOHN F. LACEY 

during the spring migration, would accomplish nearly 
everything that was desired. 

I have just written an article for Field and Stream, 
which was inspired by reading Mr. Houghton's article on 
your bill, in the last number. I enclose the article and a 
copy of the bill to you, with the suggestion that you intro- 
duce this bill also ; as it would remove some of the objec- 
tions that you will encounter on the other bill. The time, 
of course, is short, but there is a feeling in favor of con- 
servation that will be of aid to you. It took me six years 
to get the Lacey Act through Congress, but there has 
been a great change of sentiment since then. 

With kind regards, Yours truly, 

(Signed) John F. Lacey. 



LACEY ON FISH AND GAME PRESERVES 

LETTER OF W. B. MERSHON TO MAJOR LACEY ON CONSERVATION 

Saginaw, Mich., November 30, 1909. 

Dear Sir : On August 20th I received a letter from G. 
0. Shields, president of the League of American Sports- 
men, notifying me that I had been appointed chairman of 
the committee on conservation of national resources to 
represent the League in cooperation with the National 
Conservation Commission. I was also informed that my 
associates on this committee would consist of Hon. John 
F. Lacey, Oskaloosa, Iowa; Admiral R. D. Evans, No. 324 
Indiana Avenue, Washington, D. C. ; Col. J. H. McDer- 
mott, Morgantown, W. Va. ; Mr. J. Adams Brown, vice- 
president New Netherland Bank, New York City, and Dr. 
F. Schavoir, Stamford, Conn., and on October 7th I re- 
reived a letter from Gifford Pinchot of which I enclose 
herewith a copy, also copy of the printed blank referred 
to in Mr. Pinchot's letter. 

I should have taken this matter up with you before but 
I spent the entire month of October in Saskatchewan on 
a hunting expedition and have been too busy since my re- 
turn to take it up until now. 

I think the letters enclosed fully explain themselves and 
I suppose it is Mr. Pinchot 's idea that any suggestions 
come to the joint committee through me. At your con- 
venience will you give me your idea of what our com- 
mittee can suggest that will bring forward some plan for 
the conservation of game ? I came near saying * 'the wild 
life of the forest and field" but I suppose some committee 
having some part of the agricultural interests in charge, 



188 MAJOR JOHN F. LACEY 

will make suggestions relative to preservation of the 
birds that are a value to agriculture. This is merely 
guesswork on my part, and possibly you think our com- 
mittee could take under the one head the consideration of 
the whole question, both animals and birds, and possibly 
fishes that are ordinarily taken for sport. 

The subject of conservation dovetails so thoroughly 
one subject into another that it is hard to draw the line 
into minute sub-divisions. Thus, for instance, the pres- 
ervation of the forests and reestablishment of a ground 
cover over denuded forest areas ; preserving a stream so 
that it can continue to be a trout stream, or affording 
cover in which birds and wild woods life can live, illus- 
trates what I mean. My own opinion is that if we can 
only suggest some plan whereby the national govern- 
ment can not only afford more protection to wild things 
but can increase the supply by propagation, distribution, 
and through setting apart game refuges — something 
along the line now employed by the United States Fish 
Commission, it would be well to take that under consid- 
eration and make a suggestion. The duty of the indi- 
vidual states along this same line is plain but so far the 
states have failed to do their duty. The present laws in 
relation to the protection of game and fish are openly 
violated. State game laws are not popular. Our high 
protectionists will go to Europe or Canada and if they 
find something to their liking and cheap, or a set of furs 
or fur coat for their wife, they will try to smuggle it in 
and then boast to their neighbors how smart they have 
been, if they have gotten through the custom-house with- 
out being caught. This is just about the same with the 
game laws; people will boast of having partridge for din- 
ner here in Michigan when they know it is contrary to the 
law to sell them. Hardly a city club is without game in 
and out of season ; game that has been purchased unlaw- 



ADDRESSES OF MAJOR LACEY 189 

fully, and yet our leading citizens and those who would 
be shocked to be termed "law breakers," do not hesitate 
to order the game served to them and encourage by their 
willingness to eat it, the continual breaking of these state 
laws. A national law is more apt to be respected, so that 
if the conservation of game and fish and song birds and 
insectivorous birds is undertaken by the United States 
government, better results will follow. 

I am sorry that legal complications at present seem to 
block a straightforward way of accomplishing the pur- 
pose, but I suppose one of the purposes of this committee 
is to suggest some remedy whereby the conservation of 
these natural resources can be practically applied. 

I shall be glad to hear from you at your convenience. 

Yours truly, 

W. B. Meeshon. 
Hon. John F. Lacey, 

Oskaloosa, Iowa. 

MAJOR LACEY *S REPLY 

Oskaloosa, Iowa, December 30, 1909. 
Wm. B. Mershon, 

Saginaw, Mich. 

Dear Sir : Your letter of November 30th came to hand 
in due time, together with the enclosures referred to. 

I am glad to know that you are chairman of this section 
of the conservation committee. Your painstaking study 
of the practical extermination of the passenger pigeon 
shows that you will not be an inactive member. 

In answer to your inquiry: "Will you give me your 
idea on what our committee can suggest that will bring 
forward some plan for the conservation of game?" I take 
pleasure in answering that during my sixteen years ' ser- 
vice in Congress on the committee on public lands I was 
constantly confronted with the necessity of legislation 



190 MAJOR JOHN F. LACEY 

along all the lines of conservation of our natural re- 
sources ; and I had the satisfaction of framing and aiding 
in securing the passage of many bills for these purposes. 

As the various matters to come up will, no doubt, be 
divided into separate propositions, I wish to press upon 
the committee the one plan of my own which has been so 
far applied partially in separate bills, and that is, the 
question of game preserves. The code of laws for the 
protection of Yellowstone National Park, I had the pleas- 
ure of drawing, although the park had been in existence 
many years practically under no law as to details of man- 
agement. The creation of the Wichita Forest Reserve in 
Oklahoma into a game preserve, and also the Grand Can- 
yon Preserve, are instances of specific legislation which 
I proposed. Under the so-called "Lacey Act" a large 
number of islands have by executive order been set apart 
as breeding grounds for birds. I prepared and intro- 
duced a bill, in nearly every Congress in which I served, 
giving the President authority by executive orders, to set 
apart the whole, or a specific portion of any forest re- 
serve, as a game preserve, and provide the necessary reg- 
ulation for protecting game therein. These specific areas 
could be used as breeding or stocking grounds, the over- 
flow supplying the outside country. The necessity and 
propriety of such a law is more evident now than it was 
when I first undertook to secure its enactment. 

There is now under the control of the Department of 
Agriculture forest area equal to the states of Minnesota, 
Iowa, and Missouri combined. These reserves are widely 
scattered, and if designated areas should be selected, 
with a closed season substantially the year round therein, 
with authority for the Department of Agriculture to con- 
serve the same, as already provided for in the so-called 
"Lacey Act," the question of saving our wild life from 
extinction would be solved. 



ADDRESSES OF MAJOR LACEY 191 

These forest reserves will be permanent: they have 
evidently come to stay : they are under the care of rangers 
who look after affairs and the general protection of the 
timber. These men can also prevent violation of the 
regulations and game laws therein. Such preserves 
would soon become popular, because the people would 
find that a portion of the game would constantly overflow 
into the outside territory. 

The experiment is now being actively tried in the 
Wichita Forest Reserve, where I was able to secure the 
enactment of a law specifically using that one reservation 
as an object lesson for similar methods in other states 
and territories. I believe that the success of that pre- 
serve will lead other states actively to work for similar 
legislation. 

Perhaps this might be ultimately accomplished by sep- 
arate bills, say one reserve for each state in which the 
forest reserves are located. There is a hostility to per- 
mitting executive orders being made that interferes 
greatly with securing a general bill ; and perhaps it would 
be more successful as a practical question to start sep- 
arate preserves designating the location in each of the 
states where there is a forest reserve. The same plan 
could be adopted as to fish protection ; but fish are such 
rapid breeders that active propagation and distribution 
will probably be adequate. 

There is another proposition that ought to be tried — 
and that involves a grave constitutional question — and 
that is, the protection of the migratory wild-birds. My 
old friend, George Shiras 3rd, has devoted considerable 
time to the legal aspects of this proposition. Game lo- 
cated in any state is the property of the people of that 
state, and national legislation may not be constitutional. 
Migratory birds do not belong to any state, and the people 
of all of the sovereign states are interested in their pro- 



192 MAJOR JOHN F. LACEY 

tection. The same question would apply to shad and 
other migratory fish. If spring shooting were entirely 
forbidden as to all these birds they would rapidly in- 
crease. This question would perhaps be best worked out 
by a crusade in behalf of separate state legislation for- 
bidding spring shooting, and by making a sufficiently long 
closed season in the south to prevent the destruction of 
the water-fowl in the winter. 

In short I think there are two propositions to which we 
could direct national attention : 

1. The setting apart of one game preserve in a forest 
reserve in each state or territory where the reserves are 
now or may be hereafter located. 

2. Securing state or national legislation to protect 
water-fowl during the spring migration. 

Yours truly, 

John F. Lacey. 



ADVANCE IN GAME PROTECTION DUE TO 
LEAGUE OF AMERICAN SPORTSMEN x 

Liberal success in the cause of game protection has at- 
tended the efforts of the League of American Sportsmen, 
winch held its third annual meeting last week in this city. 
President Shield's report, read to the delegates, shows 
the league to have 5,110 members, and working divisions 
in thirty-five states and in one Canadian province, On- 
tario. Work is being vigorously pushed in the remain- 
ing ten states and President Shields made the prediction 
that before the next annual meeting of the league the or- 
ganization of state divisions will have been accomplished 
in all of them. 

The principal object of the league is "to protect the 
game and game fishes ; the song and other innocent birds ; 
to enforce the game laws where such exist, and to secure 
and enforce such laws where not now in existence." 

"We have found moral suasion," says President 
Shields, "a very important factor in accomplishing what 
we are after. Often men and boys are guilty of violating 
the game laws through thoughtlessness or ignorance. 
Many cases of this kind are brought to my notice, and I 
write the accused, stating the charge that has been made 
against him, warning him against repetition of the of- 
fense and asking him for a pledge that he will stop his 
illegal work. 

"Although persons so notified generally deny the 
charges, they also as a rule promise 'not to do it again,' 
and they don't. 

i New York World, February 17, 1901. 



194 MAJOR JOHN F. LACEY 

' ' Where there is no game law in existence a request to 
the thoughtless, who simply kill game and birds for the 
pleasure of bringing them down, often curbs them." 

Since its organization the league has successfully pros- 
ecuted eighty-one cases of violation of game laws. The 
most important of these was the conviction of a Fulton 
Market game dealer who was fined $1,000 for selling quail 
out of season to the American steamship line. The dis- 
position of this case had a remarkable effect on game 
dealers everywhere. Dealers who had up to that time 
defied the law ceased selling and notified market hunters 
who had standing orders for all the game they could kill 
and smuggle into the market that they had concluded not 
to sell or receive any more in the close season. 

An important victory of the protection of game and 
song birds was the passage of the Lacey bird bill, largely 
through the efforts of the league. Introduced in Con- 
gress by the Hon. John F. Lacey, of Iowa, the bill was 
passed and signed by the President, although opposed by 
powerful influences. 



FOREST RESERVES AS BREEDING PLACES FOR 
WILD LIFE x 

The preservation and propagation of game has in most 
countries met with much hostility among the people. The 
laws have been stringent and severe, and their enforce- 
ment has been harsh and unpopular. The Norman con- 
querors of England destroyed many fine farms to plant 
the New Forest for the royal pleasure. From the time 
when William Shakespeare was prosecuted for poaching, 
down to the present day, game laws have met with deter- 
mined opposition. Harriet Martineau's spirited attacks 
upon these laws in England aided in bringing her volu- 
minous writing into popularity. She struck a popular 
chord with the general public. 

Those laws in the old world were enacted for the com- 
fort of a privileged class, and it was hardly to be expected 
that the poor would obey, without complaint, laws which 
protected the wild creatures from the fowling pieces and 
snares of the poor, in order that there might be sport for 
the nobility. 

But in America no such invidious distinction exists, and 
the preservation of our birds and game becomes a matter 
of general interest to all, to rich and poor alike. 

The whole continent was once a vast park filled with 
wild life in forest, mountain, and plain, whilst the air was 
alive with the feathered flocks. 

The preservation of these creatures was long neglected, 
because their innumerable multitude seemed to make it 
impossible that they should ever be exterminated. 

With the disappearance of the wild pigeon and the buf- 

1 By John F. Lacey. 



196 MAJOR JOHN F. LACEY 

falo, and the reduction of many other species to the point 
indicating the near approach of extermination, the con- 
science of the people has become quickened on this sub- 
ject, and a sympathetic public has begun to view this 
question in an entirely different light. Sentiment and 
utility have joined hands. 

As to many of our birds and beasts, the problem now is 
how to prevent complete extinction. Of the countless mil- 
lions of wild pigeons that once darkened the air and en- 
livened the woods, only a few hundred, at most, seem to 
be alive, and even their existence is a subject of contro- 
versy. There are enough buffaloes still remaining to pre- 
vent complete extermination, and probably ultimately to 
supply a very useful breed of cattle in captivity. The 
national government has embarked in the enterprise of 
restoring a small herd of these animals in the Yellow- 
stone National Park, but in that severe climate and high 
altitude, the increase is slow. In view of the success of 
the Indian in preserving and multiplying the herd upon 
the Flathead Reservation, there is much reason for en- 
couragement as to the Yellowstone herd, because the cli- 
mate and elevation are nearly the same. On the Flathead 
Reservation there are 342 buffaloes about equally divided 
between the sexes. This number remains after the sale 
of a considerable number to Howard Eaton a few years 
ago. 

The buffalo should be preserved and renewed in the 
forest reserves. The number remaining are but few. 
Fortunately the little flocks in captivity are widely scat- 
tered, so that no unexpected epidemic can suddenly com- 
plete their extermination. 

The Austin Corbin herd at Meriden, New Hampshire, 
now numbers 154 fine animals, one-half of which are 
males. The new herd in the Yellowstone Park was start- 
ed a few years ago with eighteen cows from the Flathead 



ADDRESSES OF MAJOR LACEY 197 

herd, and three bulls from the Goodnight herd in Texas. 
Three calves have since been captured from the wild herd 
in the mountains, and the total number now is forty-three. 
They are enclosed in a large field near the Mammoth Hot 
Springs and form one of the most interesting spectacles 
in the park. The wild buffaloes in the park at the time 
of its reservation numbered about four hundred. The 
poachers and head-hunters pursued them remorselessly 
until tardily enacted laws put an end to the nefarious 
traffic. Concealed in the most unfrequented part of the 
park, the calves exposed to wolves and mountain lions, 
the number has steadily declined. Six were found dead 
in the deep snow last spring and only about twenty re- 
main alive. 

The Flathead herd in Montana, when divided and part- 
ly sold a few years ago, had increased to nearly three hun- 
dred. They were the progeny of about thirty-five calves 
saved by the Indians at the time of the final general 
slaughter, when the hide-hunters were engaged in their 
deadly work. It was a profitable business venture, for 
the animals are now worth $250 and upwards apiece. 

Hon. James Philip (best known among his friends as 
"Scotty" Philip) has a herd near Fort Pierre, South 
Dakota, which has increased from about twenty-three to 
one hundred eighteen. They are in a climate and locality 
admirably adapted to the buffalo, among the bluffs of the 
upper Missouri River. These animals are magnificent 
specimens of the pure plains breed. The Goodnight herd 
in Texas now numbers forty-four. 

I wish in this article to present what appears to me a 
practical means of partially undoing the work of devasta- 
tion which has gone so near the point of complete exter- 
mination. The destruction of our forests has been going 
on at so great a rate as to alarm the public mind and pre- 
pare the people to accept some remedy. 



198 MAJOR JOHN F. LACEY 

The interests of irrigation and navigation have called 
attention to the necessity of preserving the sources of our 
water courses by retaining or restoring the forests from 
which they flow. 

Fortunately, many millions of acres of wooded lands 
are still held by the national government, and about 
85,000,000 acres of these lands have been set apart in 
eighty-three permanent national forest reserves. The 
primary purpose of these reservations is to conserve the 
streams and provide means of irrigation and, also, in some 
degree, to influence the rainfall. They are well scattered 
in the Far West, and are generally upon land which is of 
little value for agricultural use. 

They are reserved for the use of man and not reserved 
from his use. The ripened trees will be cut as they may 
be needed. There has been much local opposition to many 
of these reservations, but time and observation have 
greatly changed the local sentiment. The experimental 
stage has passed and they can, therefore, be accepted as 
an established fact, and the question naturally arises as to 
what extent they may be utilized for the preservation of 
the remains of our birds, fish, and game, and be used as 
sources of propagation and supply. At least a portion of 
these lands should be so used. The writer of this article 
has for many years endeavored to secure legislation to 
this end. Wyoming has shown her sympathy with the 
movement by declaring a permanently closed season in 
that part of the forest reserves adjacent to the Yellow- 
stone National Park. 

If some plan of this kind is not adopted, there will soon 
be very few game birds or game animals anywhere in the 
United States, except in the narrow limits of private pre- 
serves. If these national reserves are utilized as prop- 
agating grounds, there will be an overflow from them, 
which will inure to the benefit of the general public The 



ADDRESSES OF MAJOR LACEY 199 

game which wander beyond the protected boundary in the 
open season will furnish supplies to the surrounding pop- 
ulation, whilst the sources of supply will be undisturbed. 
Instead of a general war of extermination being waged 
in every part of the country, there will be havens of ref- 
uge from which a permanent source of supply may be as- 
sured in the future. 

At the regular session of Congress in 1901, President 
Roosevelt, in his annual message, called the attention of 
Congress to this subject in the following statement : 

The increase in deer, elk, and other animals in the Yellowstone 
Park shows what may be expected when other mountain forests 
are properly protected by law and properly guarded. Some of 
these areas have been so denuded of surface vegetation by over 
grazing that the ground-breeding birds, including grouse and 
quail, and many mammals, including deer, have been extermin- 
ated or driven away. At the same time the water-storing ca- 
pacity of the surface has been decreased or destroyed, thus pro- 
moting floods in time of rain and diminishing the flow of streams 
between rains. . . 

Some at least of the forest reserves should afford perpetual 
protection to the native fauna and flora, safe havens of refuge 
to our rapidly diminishing wild animals of the larger kind, and 
free camping grounds for the ever increasing numbers of men 
and women who have learned to find rest, health, and recreation 
in the splendid forests and flower-clad meadows of our moun- 
tains. 

Bills have been introduced to carry out this humane 
suggestion, but up to the present time, only one of them 
has been enacted into law; but the more the question is 
considered, the more favorably the proposition is being 
viewed in the localities to be the more immediately affect- 
ed and benefited. The choice is plain. Some must be 
protected or all will be destroyed. 

The Wichita Forest Reserve of 56,000 acres in Okla- 
homa has been made a game preserve with the hearty ap- 



200 MAJOR JOHN F. LACEY 

proval of the people of that proposed state, and the mil- 
lions of people who will soon inhabit that great common- 
wealth will enjoy the benefits of this wise measure of pro- 
tection. If the proposed bill should become a law, the 
small band of elk in Olympic Forest Reserve in the state 
of Washington could be saved from menaced extermina- 
tion. 

Deer have become quite plentiful in the woods and 
mountains of Vermont and an overflow has migrated into 
Massachusetts and Connecticut and they have even 
reached the shores of Long Island Sound. 

Such results in an old settled country like Vermont 
show what could be done by a fair degree of protection 
in our national forest reserves. 

In the state of Vermont the writer has been informed 
by Senator Redfield Proctor and Game Commissioner H. 
G. Thomas that in 1878 deer had been practically ex- 
terminated in the state for many years. 

A syndicate of public spirited gentlemen secured the 
enactment of a closed season for deer and imported and 
released seventeen of these beautiful animals for prop- 
agation. In 1897 an open season for bucks only, during 
October was permitted, and afterwards for the last ten 
days only of each October. The possibilities of deer res- 
toration have been shown by the results. In 1897, 103 
were killed in the open season ; in 1898, 131 ; in 1899, 90 ; 
in 1900, 123; in 1901, 211; in 1902, 403; in 1903, 753; in 
1904, 531. In 1905 the open season was reduced to six 
days and there were killed 495 in that short period. A 
good many animals were illegally killed during these 
years as there were reported 357 thus killed, and no doubt 
some were killed without being reported. 

Ex-Congressman Billmyer of Washingtonville, Penn- 
sylvania, recently reported to the writer remarkable re- 



ADDRESSES OF MAJOR LACEY 201 

suits of deer propagation. He has a little private reserve 
of only forty acres, safely enclosed, in which he, seven 
years ago, placed three elk and six deer. In six and a 
half years the elk had increased to thirteen, and the deer 
to about one hundred. He reports that the fawns were 
almost invariably twins, and that his little flock was worth 
$3,000, showing the profitable nature of the investment 
from a purely commercial standpoint. This rapid in- 
crease seems almost incredible, but the surroundings were 
the most favorable, and the animals were well supplied 
with food. Such examples as these show that if proper 
protection is given in the forest reserves, the land out- 
side, and for many miles beyond their boundaries, will 
again be well supplied. The inhabitants in the surround- 
ing settlements will help to protect and guard this source 
of supply instead of hastening to destroy it. 

Many of the streams in these reserves are well stocked 
with trout and other fish. Fishes are marvelously pro- 
lific. No radical or extreme measures of protection are 
needed to preserve them from extinction, but reasonable 
closed seasons and limitations upon the size and number 
of those caught, and enforcement of laws and regulations 
against dynamiting or other barbarous methods of fish- 
ing, would keep these streams as permanent and constant 
supply stations, with which to restock the water courses 
that there find their source. 

National forestry is tree cultivation upon a large scale, 
covering long periods of time, for which the lives of in- 
dividuals would be inadequate. Scientific forestry has 
taken a firm hold in France and Germany. The destruc- 
tion of streams and farms by the washing of sand and 
gravel, caused by the wholesale cutting down of the 
woods, has called the attention of the people of the old 
world to the necessity of reforesting the waste lands. The 



202 MAJOR JOHN F. LACEY 

people of the United States are awakening upon this ques- 
tion at a much earlier period than did our kinfolk across 
the sea. 

Now that anyone can put his dogs and gun into a bag- 
gage car, and, taking a comfortable sleeping berth, reach 
his hunting grounds five hundred miles away in a few 
hours, his power of slaughter has become so great that 
moderation and self-restraint become the test of a true 
sportsman. 

The unlimited power to travel and kill should be also 
bounded by the limitations of the law. The necessity for 
protection increases as the powers of man to kill have in- 
creased. With the bloody breech-loader, and abominable 
automatic gun of the present day, exterminating is an 
easy thing. In fact, with long-range, rapid-firing guns in 
the hands of inexperienced hunters, it is dangerous alike 
for man or beast to go into the woods in the open season 
in Wisconsin, Minnesota, or Maine. 

It is to be hoped that the people of the Pacific Coast 
will profit by the experience of their Atlantic ancestors 
and not permit their salmon streams to become as barren 
as the once prolific Connecticut now is. 

The forest reserves have had additions during the past 
year of 22,854,978 acres, bringing up the grand total to 
85,618,472 acres, exceeding the area of Iowa and Missouri 
combined. 

Not the least important of the uses of this vast domain 
should be to give shelter to a remnant of that wonderful 
wild life that once filled this continent. 



THE PETRIFIED FOREST NATIONAL PARK OF 

ARIZONA ' 

The writer of this article has endeavored for six years 
to secure the enactment of a law creating a national park 
to include and preserve the wonderful petrified forest of 
Arizona. The bill passed the House of Representatives 
in the 56th, 57th, and 58th Congresses, but failed to be 
acted upon in the Senate. The committee on the public 
lands of the Senate, to whom these bills have been re- 
ferred, has thus failed to take any action. The secretary 
of the interior in his annual reports has repeatedly asked 
the enactment of such a law and has withdrawn the land 
from entry so that it may not pass into private ownership, 
and has endeavored to protect the trees as far as possible 
under the general land laws. 

This remarkable deposit has been subject to much van- 
dalism already, and unless permanently reserved and pro- 
tected is sure of ultimate destruction. 

The land is useless for agriculture as it is in the heart 
of a sandy desert. An attempt was made some years ago 
to work these trees up into table tops but the prevalence 
of small holes in the body of the finest of the logs pre- 
vented the success of this commercial enterprise. Other- 
wise this great national curiosity would have long since 
become a matter of history only. 

Failing to make a success of the table top scheme it was 
next proposed to grind the trees up into powder and a mill 
was erected for that purpose near Adamana. But, 
fortunately, a ledge of emery stone was found nearer 

i John F. Lacey in Shields' Magazine. 



204 MAJOR JOHN F. LACEY 

market in Canada, and the emery factory proved un- 
profitable, greatly to the disappointment of these com- 
mercial vandals. 

This same genius of greed that has been converting 
ancient Egyptian mummies into paints and fertilizer will 
make short work of this marvelous forest if some use can 
be found that will transform it into money. 

Nothing short of permanent reservation by law will 
preserve it from destruction. Dynamite has been used 
in order to blow some of the finest trees into suitable frag- 
ments for ' ' specimens. ' ' 

This forest is without doubt the greatest natural curi- 
osity in America. 

Ages ago, so long that it makes one dizzy to think of it, 
these trees were alive and growing in the Southwest. 
They were coniferous, as shown by microscopic examina- 
tion of their texture. The species is now extinct and the 
nearest resembling species now found exists in Asia 
Minor. 

The geological history of this forest is very easy to 
read. The trees have fallen down and floated around in 
some old arm of the sea until the roots and limbs were 
worn and rounded just as we see like examples on the 
sandbars of the Mississippi. The trees became heavy and 
water-logged and settled to the sea bottom. They were 
slowly covered by a deposit of sandstone of forty to fifty 
feet, or more, in thickness, and under this deposit below 
the old sea bed they were slowly transformed into chal- 
cedony of such beautiful and varied colors as has been 
nowhere else equaled. Afterwards the land slowly rose 
until it became an elevated plain 7,000 feet above the 
present sea level. 

Erosion by wind and water has done its work and un- 
covered several thousand acres of this antediluvian plain. 
The great logs lie, many of them, just as they appeared 



ADDRESSES OF MAJOR LACEY 205 

when they first sank to their present resting place. Along 
the edge of the rocky blnffs they may be still partly cov- 
ered with the overlying standstone and partly protruding 
into the excavated valley. 

The genesis of this old forest is thus preserved by the 
testimony of the rocks. 

The Santa Fe Railway passes through Adamana and 
Holbrook, from five to twelve miles away, and the traveler 
across the continent has the easy opportunity to see the 
greatest scenic wonder in the world, the Grand Canyon of 
the Colorado in Arizona, and the greatest natural curios- 
ity, the Petrified Forest of Arizona. Under the turquoise 
sky of the desert the scenery is doubly beautiful. 

There are other petrified forests, but this is The Petri- 
fied Forest of the World. Yellow, red, blue, white, black, 
brown, pink, purple, green, gray, in fact all the colors of 
the rainbow are found in these old trees. Many of them 
are five feet in diameter and one hundred and forty feet 
in length, and lie just as they were originally deposited 
imbedded a few inches in the desert sand. 

In another place the old sea bottom has been eroded 
below its original level and there the trees have been 
broken into short logs and have rolled into great con- 
fusion. 

The "Natural Bridge" is a beautiful specimen, where a 
tree still lies imbedded in the sandstone at each end, and 
a deep ravine, forty-five feet wide, has been washed away 
beneath it. The winds and the rain have worn away the 
sandstone, but the petrified trees are as hard and endur- 
ing as the eternal adamant. 

Coleridge describes the great arches of a Gothic cathe- 
dral as a "petrified religion." 

As hard almost as the diamond, as brilliant in colors 
as the flowers of the field, this ancient forest, which was 
transformed into stone perhaps before man appeared on 



206 MAJOR JOHN F. LACEY 

the planet, is still to be seen under the sunshine of Ari- 
zona. It should by all means be preserved for the ad- 
miration and wonder of generations yet to come. 

Let these trees be protected from vandalism and they 
will endure forever. It is to be hoped that the public sen- 
timent which has urged and warmly approved of the ac- 
tion of the House of Representatives in thrice passing the 
bill to set aside this land as a public national park will in 
the near future bring about favorable action in the Sen- 
ate. That lover of nature, the President, will be glad to 
sign such a bill. 



PRESERVING PETRIFIED FORESTS x 

So far as the House of Representatives can guarantee 
it, the people of the United States will be assured, when 
the present bill passes, of the possession, as a public park, 
of the famous petrified forests of Arizona. The vast tract 
of interesting country thus set apart for the people and 
preserved forever from the devastating hand of the van- 
dal will be known as the Petrified Forest National Park. 
There is no doubt that the bill will become a law and a 
wonder of the New World will thus be added to the na- 
tion's pleasure grounds. 

A description of the remarkable scenery and objects of 
interest in the region where the new national park is to be 
located will show that the United States government has 
taken a timely step in the people's interests in making 
public property of this extremely interesting section of 
Uncle Sam's dominions. 

The United States government tardily recognized the 
necessity of preserving as public property some of the 
great wonders of nature. The Yellowstone National Park 
was the first one of these reservations thus set apart as a 
national resort. Since then the public lands around the 
Yosemite have been embraced in a national park. Efforts 
are being made to save the big trees of California from 
the saw of the lumberman. Mt. Ranier has become a park 
and its natural scenery preserved from mutilation. 

Arizona, with her pure healing air, has for many years 
been the source of renewed life to the invalids of America. 
New Mexico and Arizona will in due time take the place, of 

i By John F. Lacey, Washington, May 19, 1900. 



208 MAJOR JOHN F. LACEY 

Nice and Mentone as the resort of the weak-lunged people 
of both hemispheres. Arizona has, in addition to the 
beauty of her climate, two of the most remarkable scenic 
wonders on the globe. The Grand Canyon of the Colo- 
rado is without question the most sublime and startling 
of all the works of nature in North America. 

But there is in Arizona a more wonderful scene than 
even the Grand Canyon itself. In a desert region, a few 
hours' journey by rail east of the Grand Canyon, is the 
petrified forest. In other parts of the United States there 
may be found occasional petrifications of remarkable 
character, but here are the remains of a great forest. 
These trees are of a coniferous, extinct species, with the 
exception of a single cottonwood trunk. They lie prone 
upon the ground as they drifted in on a prehistoric sea. 
Water-logged and heavy they sank to the bottom, and 
were there covered with sand and were changed into chal- 
cedony. The sand hardened and cemented into stone and 
finally rose above the waters. This stone forest lay hid- 
den from view for countless ages. By slow disintegra- 
tion the imbedding rock all washed away and the petrified 
trees, being much harder and more durable, were left ly- 
ing scattered in dense profusion on the surface of the 
earth, where they had so long laid buried. 

These trees are of the most beautiful colors, and the 
stone takes as high a polish as granite. Reckless tourists 
have long been engaged in carrying away fragments, even 
using dynamite on some of the specimens, while enter- 
prising money-making men have planned the removal and 
grinding of these trees into powder to be used as a sub- 
stitute for emery, the only thing that prevented this com- 
mercial vandalism being the discovery of a stone in Can- 
ada that would answer the same purpose. 

Over an area several miles in extent the petrified logs 
are countless at all horizons and lie in the greatest pro- 



ADDRESSES OF MAJOR LACEY 209 

fusion on the knolls, buttes, and spurs, and in the ravines 
and gulches, while the ground seems to be everywhere 
studded with gems consisting of the broken fragments of 
all shapes and sizes and exhibiting all the colors of the 
rainbow. 

There is no other petrified forest in which the wood as- 
sumes so many varied and interesting forms and colors, 
and it is these that present the chief attraction to the gen- 
eral public. The state of mineralization in which much of 
this wood exists almost places them among the gems and 
precious stones. Not only are chalcedony, opals, and 
agates found among them, but many approach the condi- 
tion of jasper and onyx. 



THE PAJARITO ' 

AN OUTING WITH THE AKCHAEOLOGISTS 

It was in August, 1902, that Prof. Edgar L. Hewett 
urged me to visit the ruins of the cliff dwellers and cave 
dwellers and see for myself the necessity and propriety 
of the enactment of a law to protect and preserve the 
ancient aboriginal ruins of the Southwest; and so Dr. 
Hewett, Congressman B. S. Rodey, Land Commissioner 
Keen, and myself visited the Pajarito region ; slept in the 
deserted caves, explored the communal ruins, and then 
pursued our journey to the still living pueblos of Santa 
Clara, San Ildefonso, Cochiti, ending with Santa Fe and 
Acoma. 

It was this trip that led to the introduction and passage 
of my bill for the preservation of aboriginal ruins and 
places of scenic and scientific interest upon the public do- 
main, under which the Petrified Forest, the Olympic 
Range Elk Reserve and about two hundred places of eth- 
nological interest have been designed as " monuments ' ' 
and preserved to the public. And it was the enactment of 
this law which led to the formation of the School of Amer- 
ican Archaeology. 

Under the American Archaeological Institute, or aux- 
iliary to it, are four archaeological schools : Rome, Ath- 
ens, Jerusalem, and Santa Fe. 

Santa Fe is young as compared with the other three 
cities, but is old indeed measured by American history, 
for its foundation in 1605 was four years ahead of James- 
town and fifteen years senior to the landing at Plymouth 
Rock. 



i By John F. Lacey. 



ADDRESSES OF MAJOR LACEY 211 

The old Palace of the Governors at Santa Fe has been 
dedicated as a museum of antiquities by the intelligent 
forethought of the legislature of New Mexico, and the 
restoration of the ancient building has been conducted 
with excellent taste under the auspices of Director Hew- 
ett. 

Where an old timber has gone to decay it is restored 
by the substitution of another old, but sound, timber, thus 
preserving the harmony of the building. 

It is in the new state of New Mexico that the American 
School of Archaeology holds its summer session. In the 
winter its director uncovers and explores the ruins of 
Chichen Itza, of Uxmal, of Palenquie, and Quiriga, in 
Yucatan and Central America, where ruins equaling 
Luxor in magnitude are hidden in the tropical jungle. 

New Mexico has been celebrated by Dr. Charles F. 
Lummis in story and song. Out of his description of this 
marvelous land I will take the liberty to condense and 
quote : 

New Mexico — the land of Poco Tiemp — sun, silence, and 
adobe — a picture, a romance, and a dream, all in one — the 
sun's very own — where distance is lost and the eye is a liar — 
where the rattlesnake is a demigod and the cigarette a means of 
grace — a land of six-story buildings before Columbus' grand- 
father was born — a land of a hundred republics centuries be- 
fore 1776 — ragged courtiers and unlettered diplomats — under 
the alchemy of its sky mud turns ethereal and the desert a rev- 
elation — rivers where a minnow must stand on his head to wet 
his gills — a wilderness of happy silence — an ether of content- 
ful ease. 

In 1911 1 enjoyed the pleasure of attending the session 
of the School of Archaeology in the Rito de los Frijoles 
(Bean Creek, in plain, unpoetic English). And it was an 
outing worth while. 

All ages and many occupations were represented : col- 



212 MAJOR JOHN F. LACEY 

lege presidents, business men, ranchers, farmers, teach- 
ers, lawyers, doctors, supreme court justices, preachers, 
students, old young people of twelve years, and young old 
people of seventy joined to make the meeting enjoyable 
as well as instructive. And they were a jolly lot. Only 
one kicker was reported, and she arrived after dark and 
left early next morning. 

They slept in tents or in the caves, washed in the Rito, 
and took their meals at Judge Abbott's excellent table at 
his stone ranch-house in the canon. He called his guests 
to the table by ringing a triangle, but the meals were 
square. 

There are in the Puye, the Tschrege, and the Rito de los 
Frijoles enough cave dwellings and remains of communal 
houses to have sheltered a population of fifty thousand 
souls, if they had all been occupied in the same time. 

One communal ruin on the top of the mesa of Puye con- 
tains 1,600 rooms, which would rival some of our modern 
skyscrapers in its capacity, and its three and four stories 
of apartments, built with stone tools in the long ago, show 
a great degree of skill. The plastered floor and walls 
exhibit methods of industry and cleanliness. 

We saw how this work was done at Acoma, when we ar- 
rived in 1902, after a heavy rain. Mud was plentiful in 
the streets. The men were out harvesting in their little 
fields, from five to twenty miles away, and the women 
were busy freshening up the plaster of their three-story 
houses and whitening them with a whitewash made from 
rocks near at hand. 

Their little brown hands were used as trowels and the 
mud was spread as smoothly as though they had belonged 
to the plasterers' union. 

In the narrow valley of the Rito is one of the communal 
ruins of perhaps a thousand rooms, and twenty Tewa In- 



ADDRESSES OF MAJOR LACEY 213 

dians from San Ildefonso were engaged in removing the 
debris and uncovering the walls to the view of the modern 
American. 

In the north side walls of the canon, facing the sun- 
shine, are many caves which were probably the first homes 
of the early settlers of the Pajarito region. 

The falling of the rock has buried many houses built 
against the rocky walls, and the excavation there has laid 
these ruins bare, where their presence had been unsus- 
pected. 

No graveyard has been discovered, but a few skeletons 
have been found interred in this talus, and the body of one 
woman buried in the dust of one of the caves. 

She was clad in woven fabric and was buried in em- 
bryonic form, with her face down. These people had the 
superstition that they could go most luckily into the other 
world in the same form in which they were born into this. 

Corn husks and cobs, buried in the dust of some of the 
caves, give evidence of the food upon which these people 
lived ; and some old turkey corrals containinng deep de- 
posits of guano show that when Augustus was feeding on 
peacocks these cave dwellers enjoyed the much more 
toothsome turkey — the king of all table birds. They are 
still numerous in New Mexico. I always appreciated Dr. 
Franklin's suggestion of making the turkey our national 
bird instead of the blood-thirsty eagle. 

The wild life of this region is not numerous. In the 
woods are occasional deer, and the flying squirrels are 
able to give lessons to the best modern aviators. 

The water courses in the canons of Puye and Tschrege 
are dry, and an old pine two hundred years old, growing 
in the middle of an ancient irrigating ditch at Puye 
showed that water had been rare in that region for many 
a year, and gave some hints of the reason why the dense- 



214 MAJOR JOHN F. LACEY 

population had disappeared. But the Rito still sparkles 
and tinkles as it goes through the Canon de los Frijoles 
and makes music for the sleeping archaeologists in their 
tents and caves. Would plain Bean Creek have been so 
musical? 

The agricultural ants have dug their communal houses 
and founded their little republics in this region, as well 
as over the greater part of the elevated plains of the Far 
West. One of the visitors at the school caught a large 
centipede in one of the caves and thought he would test 
the fighting capacity of these ants. 

The centipede was deposited upon an anthill, when the 
experience of Gulliver was repeated. The many-legged 
creature found that each of his formidable legs was an 
additional handle for his little antagonists. In a short 
time the centipede was dissected into choice cuts, one 
joint to each cut, and was carried into the anthill to add 
to the variety, and decrease the cost of living. 

The kiva is one of the most curious of the ruins of 
these old pueblos. The first impression of a stranger 
is that the kiva is an old cistern. In the Rita de los Fri- 
joles there are some kivas in the solid rock, and one of 
them in the ceremonial cave has been cleaned out, re- 
roofed, and fully restored. 

In the plaza of the communal building in the canon 
there are three small kivas, and twenty rods to the east 
another larger one. 

These kivas are built upon the same stereotyped plan. 
They are round and wholly or partially below ground and 
roofed over, with no opening except in the roof, which 
is entered by a ladder, the poles of which extend high 
above the roof. 

There is an altar near the foot of the ladder and near 
the altar is a chimney and opening like a fireplace. But 



ADDRESSES OF MAJOR LACEY 215 

the chimney was used to carry fresh air down it to the 
altar and the smoke went up through the entrance in the 
roof. 

In the plastered floor are usually found two rows of 
willow staples inserted, apparently on which to fasten 
baskets or curtains for some unknown use in the cere- 
monial of the priests or people. 

The people were divided into klans and each klan had 
its kiva, and from these kivas the dancers, painted and 
ornamented, emerged on their festal days. 

Miss Dissete, connected with the Indian school services, 
says of the present Pueblo Indians, "that they are al- 
ways getting ready for a dance, having a dance, or get- 
ting over a dance." 

Dear old Bandelier, in his Delight Makers, laid the 
scene of his novel nearly four hundred years ago in this 
very canon, and the ruins that he reported in his imag- 
ination are the same ones that resound with the voices of 
the old and young archaeologists of 1911. 

We can well suspect that these kivas were the dark 
scenes of political plotting of the various parties in these 
little republics in the old days. 

In the cave dwellings the religious turn of these people 
is evidenced by the receptacle for the "prayer meal"; a 
hole in the wall large enough to hold about a half a gallon 
of the meal, kept the sacred offering always ready for 
use ; and a pinch of the meal cast north, south, east, and 
west, then up and down, reached the six cardinal points 
and the god would be sure to take notice. 

In a ceremonial smoke, the smoke was likewise puffed 
in these six directions. 

The whole region is referred to as the Pajarito and 
each separate canon and mesa had its dwellings. 

Rough, inartistic drawings of the sun, snakes, men, and 
other figures adorn the rocks and caves. A rather com- 



216 MAJOR JOHN F. LAC£Y 

ically fierce group of these pictured natives, on the wall 
by the stairway at the Tschrege, Dr. Hewett christened 
the "Reception Committee." At Cochiti there is a little 
old church that has been decorated with elk, buffalo, 
birds, horses, and other character sketches but with con- 
siderable artistic skill. The present inhabitants of Co- 
chiti have a tradition that their ancestors once inhabited 
the Rito and it is highly probable that this is true. As 
their need of defense grew less they would naturally turn 
to the more fertile and wider valley of the Rio Grande. 

The painted cave and the stone lions are among the 
most interesting of the remains. The pictures in the 
cave are in black and red and the human figures are im- 
probable and the birds impossible. Some antiquaries 
have classed one of the animals as a mammoth, but it 
looks more like a wolf. A man on horseback, with a 
bridle on the horse, is evidently junior to the Spanish 
occupancy, but the decorations may have been accumu- 
lated though a long period ahead. 

The stone lions are reached by a very rugged and well- 
nigh impossible trail. These mountain lions, carved from 
a single boulder, lie crouched with their long tails extend- 
ed and their heads between their forefeet. 

Mexican sheep herders are charged with the vandalism 
which has mutilated the heads of these lions. Prof. Starr 
has made plaster casts of these interesting figures and 
the original casts were placed in the Walker Museum of 
the Chicago University. From the little stone-walled en- 
closure where these lions lie is one of the grandest and 
wildest views in Mexico. 

They are still held in superstitious reverence and it is 
difficult to get an Indian to show these lions to a stranger. 
They show the painted cave and then wish to return 
without the hard climb to the ancient statuary. A party 
of the school visited the lions, and killing a rattlesnake 



ADDRESSES OF MAJOR LACEY 217 

in one of the caves celebrated the event by cooking the 
reptile and eating it with their wienewurst luncheon. 
They were not at all enthusiastic over the dish that so 
many hunters have so highly praised. 

The archaeological school had a large tent fly winch 
was used for the assembly room, and their outing was one 
of study as well as of amusement. Lectures on Roman 
excavations, the Greek cities of the African coast, by Dr. 
Mitchell Carroll ; the Semitic literature by Dr. Paton ; the 
ruins of the Pajarito by Dr. Hewett; and modern life 
among the Mojaves by Dr. Harrington, were instructive 
as well as pleasing. The school met at eight a. m. for 
one of these lectures, at two p. m. for another, and again 
at eight p. m., by the blaze of the camp fire, listened to 
the third of the day's series. 

A paper, the Rito de los Frijoles Gazette, was prepared 
and fragments of it read each evening. Some very artis- 
tic drawings adorned its pages, and it will be bound and 
take its place among the archives in the Museum at Santa 
Fe with the issues of the previous year. 

The last day of the school was a busy and eventful day. 
A lecture at eight in the morning by Dr. Carroll, an af- 
ternoon lecture at the ceremonial cave by Dr. Hewett, 
followed by a walking lecture along the cliffs and among 
the ruins, and a night lecture by Dr. Harrington on the 
Mojaves, closed the open session. Then the twenty Tewa 
Indians had a pleasing spectacle in store for us. 

Piles of pine boughs were heaped in front of those 
parts of the caves that had been cleared out and in the 
plaza of the old pueblo, were lighted at nine o 'clock, and 
the glorious old canon blazed with light as it had done on 
some festal night when its native population were alive 
ages ago. 

We listened to the laughing Rito as it raced down the 



218 MAJOR JOHN F. LACEY 

valley. Other voices had been stilled but the brook was 
still alive, and spoke the language of the past. 

The Indians gathered in the old plaza and danced for 
us. They performed the dog dance, the basket dance, the 
eagle dance, and the rain dance. These dances were not 
what they were in the old time when feathered heads and 
gaudy trappings made the motions as brilliant as they 
were graceful. But they sang their weird chant, as of 
old, when they gave their imitations of the dogs and the 
eagles, and weaved in and out as they imitated the mak- 
ing of the basket. The rain dance ended the perform- 
ance and sure enough the rain fell before morning. 

Frank Springer, the naturalist and geologist, and one 
of the country's greatest lawyers, was roughing it with 
the school. Mr. Springer is perhaps the greatest author- 
ity on crinoids. Not long ago he was in the British 
Museum and asked to see the crinoid collection. He was 
told that he could not do so, as the collections were scat- 
tered in heaps, in progress of reclassification, and that 
no one could see them. 

He asked what classification they were using, and was 
then told that they were to be "according to Springer." 

He told them he was the same Springer and soon was 
with his favorite crinoids. 

Dr. Lummis, always picturesque and interesting, was 
laboring under blindness, which we all hoped was tem- 
porary. Led about by his little flaxen-haired son, Quimu, 
he was one of the happiest of the party, and his guitar 
and songs enlivened the evening campfire. 

And what shall I say of Dr. Hewett? He was the life 
of the school which was his creation. He was charac- 
terized as a North Carolina judge once was, as "per- 
petual motion at maximum velocity." He is full of 
"contagious activity": he kept things always moving. 



ADDRESSES OF MAJOR LACEY 219 

In going into the Rito I stood upon the rim of the 
canon in the twilight. A rainy mist hung over the moun- 
tain. The campfires were already burning and the scene 
was one of surpassing beauty. In this sequestered val- 
ley, where once happy thousands made their homes, only 
the ranch-house of Judge Abbott is evidence of present 
occupancy. 

As we reluctantly left the valley in the morning the sun 
was shining and the bluest of blue skies arched over the 
mountain and canon walls. 

The Rito is full of interest for the lovers of the beauty 
of outdoor life. A visit to its caves and ruined buildings 
can be well followed by another to the Jimez Mountains, 
and the Zuni, Taos, Acoma, and the other living pueblos 
will reward the curious traveler. In this high altitude 
the deep breathing of the dryest and purest air will give 
health and strength for the battle of life in the hard grind 
of everyday work in this modern, everyday world. 



CLIFF DWELLERS' NATIONAL PARK 1 

The committee on the public lands, to whom was re- 
ferred the bill (H. R. 13071) to set apart certain lands in 
the territory of New Mexico as a public park, to be known 
as the Cliff Dwellers' National Park, for the purpose of 
preserving the prehistoric caves and ruins and other 
works and relics therein, beg leave to submit the follow- 
ing report, and recommend that said bill do pass, with 
amendments as follows : 

In line 6, page 4, insert after the word "visitors" the 
following: "and he may, under such rules and regula- 
tions as he may prescribe, permit grazing therein. ' ' 

In lines 17 and 18, page 4, strike out the words "and 
approximately of the same value. ' ' 

In regard to the status of the lands in question, the 
records of this office (Department of the Interior, Secre- 
tary Hitchcock's letter) show as follows: 

The Cochiti and the Canada de Cochiti claims (consolidated), 
containing 104,554 acres, have been confirmed for 5,000 acres 
only, and that in locating the grant the whole or part of the 
5,000 acres may possibly be taken from the south border of the 
proposed park. The remainder of the lands are vacant public 
lands, with the exception of a small land grant and a few scat- 
tering tracts covered by settlement and other claims. 

The proposal to set this region apart as a national park in or- 
der to properly protect and preserve these prehistoric ruins 
meets with my hearty approval, and I have accordingly prepared 
and submit herewith the draft of a proposed bill to that effect. 
The boundaries of the park are indicated on the map accom- 

1 January 23, 1901, Mr. Lacey, from the committee on the public lands, 
submitted the report. 



ADDRESSES OF MAJOR LACEY 221 

panying Mr. Mankin's report of December 4, 1899, and also on 
the inclosed map of the territory of New Mexico. 

The estimated area of the park is about 240 square miles, con- 
taining about 153,620 acres. The southwestern portion of this 
region, township 18 north, ranges 5 and 6 east, lying west of the 
Ramon Vigil Grant, is known to this office to contain cliff dwell- 
ers' ruins and other antiquities of great interest, and the same 
has accordingly been included in the boundaries of the proposed 
park, although, owing to the inaccessibility of the region, the lo- 
cation of these ruins is not indicated on the inclosed map of that 
district. 

Mr. Mankin 's report of December 4 states : 

''I would suggest as a suitable name for said reservation the 
title 'Pajarito National Park,' the 'Pajarito Canyon' (pro- 
nounced pah-har-ee-toe, meaning a small bird or sparrow) being 
the central and dominant feature of interest in the tract. ' ' 

I have accordingly designated the reservation "The Pajarito 
National Park." 

I desire to further invite attention to the fact that, since Mr. 
Mankin's report of December 4 states that the entire western 
portion of this region "is covered with a heavy growth of pine, 
spruce, and fir, ' ' which forms the watershed of numerous tribu- 
taries of the Rio Grande del Norte, the establishment of this na- 
tional park will doubtless serve an added purpose in conserving 
the water supply of that region. 

The need for promptness of action in creating this park, 
urged in the above-mentioned report by Mr. Mankin, dated 
March 1, 1900, is further attested by the accompanying letter re- 
ceived, under date of October 26, 1900, from the president of the 
New Mexico Normal University, Hon. Edgar L. Hewett, stating 
as follows: 

' ' I believe more earnestly than ever in the desirability of cre- 
ating this into a national park under the protection of the gov- 
ernment. At no time in the history of that region has such 
wanton vandalism gone on as during the past summer. Irre- 
sponsible persons have destroyed valuable burial mounds, de- 
stroyed the walls of buildings, and much priceless material has 



222 MAJOR JOHN F. LACEY 

been broken up. That which has been taken out and sold is, of 
course, not absolutely lost, for it usually finds its way into mu- 
seums. ' ' 

Your committee have considered the proposition and 
believe that it would be a wise act to preserve these re- 
mains. They are fortunately situated in a dry climate 
wiiere the elements act slowly in the work of destruction. 

The remains include picture writings, carved stone 
lions, cliff houses, cave dwellings, and community houses. 
The land lies at an altitude of from 6,000 to 9,000 feet 
above the sea, and the climate for a summer outing is as 
delightful as any in the world. 

There are many of these ruins elsewhere in New Mex- 
ico, Arizona, and Colorado, but there is probably no 
locality in which so extensive remains are found in so 
small a space. It is estimated that there are tens of 
thousands of these ancient structures, and that from one 
eminence 2,000 of these dwellings may be seen. Some of 
the communal residences are two or three stories high 
and contain 1,000 to 2,000 rooms each, with underground 
council chambers. 

Use of the grass within the proposed reservation, your 
committee thinks, can be made without impairing the use 
of the park, provided suitable regulations against van- 
dalism shall be made by the secretary of the interior, 
and we therefore have recommended that permits for 
grazing may be issued. 

Each generation usually destroys the works of its an- 
cestors. Modern Rome is built out of the remains of the 
ancient city. In the United States the prehistoric works 
of the aboriginal races have rapidly disappeared under 
the hand of the white race. 

In the Pajarito region a very large quantity of these 
relics remains because the aridity of the climate has 



ADDRESSES OF MAJOR LACEY 223 

prevented general settlement, and without injury to the 
living we can preserve these remarkable memorials of 
the dead. 

While the name of the proposed park, Pajarito, sug- 
gested by the Department of the Interior, is musical, 
there is nothing in it suggesting the purposes of the pro- 
posed park, as the word means ' ' little bird. ' ' It would be 
commonly mispronounced by English-speaking people, 
and we deemed it best to adopt the name which carries 
with it the purpose and object of the proposed reserva- 
tion. 



ON PENSIONS x 

I did not intend to take any part in this debate, but I 
cannot sit in silence and listen to the criticisms which 
have come from the other side of this chamber as against 
the pension appropriation bill without at least making a 
brief statement in behalf of the old soldiers of this coun- 
try, not in behalf of the "battle-scarred sutlers" that 
were referred to by my genial friend from Mississippi 
(Mr. Allen). My friend from Mississippi always clothes 
with humor any subject, however grave it may be, and 
we listen to him with pleasure and delight. He ought to 
remember, as no doubt he does, that the reason why this 
is the greatest pension roll that the world has ever seen 
is because it follows in the wake of the greatest war that 
the world has ever seen. The size of the roll is an evi- 
dence of his prowess and of the bravery of the men who 
fought with him upon the Southern side of the question. 

This country at the very beginning of its existence 
started out with the idea of having practically no stand- 
ing army; having in lieu of a great standing army a 
nucleus, a germ around which volunteers might rally, 
and upon which might be organized in times of our ne- 
cessity an army great enough to meet any emergency 
that might arise. That policy necessitated the adoption 
of a plan of pensions in time of peace for the volunteers 
in time of war. It was commenced with the very begin- 
ning of our government. The Revolutionary soldiers 
were put upon the pension rolls, first through lists re- 

i Speech of Hon. John F. Laeey on H. B. bill 64303, appropriation for 
payment of invalid and other pensions. 



ADDRESSES OF MAJOR LACEY 225 

vised by the Supreme Court, later on by acts of Congress 
— usually by special acts — until substantially all of 
them were put upon the rolls. 

The War of 1812, the Indian wars that followed, and 
the Mexican War have also resulted in the same system ; 
and instead of keeping a great standing army ready for 
any war that might arise, we have relied upon the peo- 
ple — the great mass of the people — to come forward ; 
and in order to do that we have adopted the pension 
system which is now so severely criticised. Instead 
of keeping an army always ready, we have found the 
volunteer system has worked well. The South sent her 
volunteers to the Mexican War. They are upon the pen- 
sion roll. The South will send her volunteers to the next 
war, whenever that may be, and everyone fighting under 
the Stars and Stripes in any war, if they become disabled, 
ought to have pensions. That has been the policy of 
government. It is true that the roll is a large one, but 
you must not lose sight of the fact that the war was also 
a great war. 

Criticism has been indulged in as to one feature of the 
law — that a rich man may draw a pension. Very well ; 
he can not draw a pension unless he is disabled. The old 
soldiers of this country, when the question came up as 
to whether a discrimination should be made against those 
who had means and that pensions should be only to the 
poor, came forward almost as a man and said they did 
not want any ' ' pauper legislation. ' ' They did not want 
legislation requiring them to go before the commissioner 
of pensions and ask for a pension on the ground that they 
were paupers, so that a certificate of pension would be 
simply an equivalent to an admission to the poorhouse. 
They resented anything of that kind, and it was in defer- 
ence to that honorable, upright, and noble sentiment that 



226 MAJOR JOHN F. LACEY 

no discrimination was made in favor of the poor and 
against the rich. The poor soldier was the most earnest 
in his opposition to such discrimination. And yet we 
have heard here today repeated criticism of the law be- 
cause it does not make such a distinction. 

Mr. Gaines : Let me ask the gentleman this question : 
If Jay Gould were living today, would the gentleman be 
willing to pension him? 

Mr. Lacey : If Jay Gould were living today and had 
fought in the war, say had lost his arm in the war, I 
would not care if he owned the whole Southern Confeder- 
acy, I would still pension him. I would not draw any 
distinction as is suggested here. I would not require 
the old soldier to go down upon his knees at the pension 
office and say, "I am a pauper and I ask the grace of the 
government. ' ' I would have him, rather, go and demand 
his pension as a right from the government, which adopt- 
ed that policy in years gone by. This pension roll will 
decrease fast enough. A good deal of sport has been 
made in this debate about its not having reached the max- 
imum. It has been said that it was to have reached the 
maximum in 1894; well, it would have done so in 1894 
if the law had been fairly administered under the last 
administration. 

I am about to explain to the gentleman from Mis- 
sissippi (Mr. Allen) why the roll did not reach the 
full limit at that time. The secretary of the interior 
in that Democratic administration was Mr. Hoke Smith, 
of Georgia. He had control of the pension bureau and 
he prevented the roll from then reaching the full limit. 
He was determined that it should not, and he applied all 
the power of the national government to keeping it down, 
and the $8,000,000 that has been referred to as having 
covered back into the treasury was simply arrears from 



ADDRESSES OF MAJOR LACEY 227 

that administration — money that ought to have been 
paid in 1894 — so that we are paying now for the past as 
well as for the present. 

The present commissioner of pensions has pursued 
a liberal policy and yet has kept within the letter 
and the spirit of the law, and yet an increase in the 
roll has come now from the fault of the previous admin- 
istration; it has come from the setting aside of orders 
made in the past cutting down pensions improperly. Pen- 
sions in many cases were cut down to $6 a month un- 
der the new law, which have been restored by the present 
administration to the limit of the act of 1890 — $12 a 
month. This administration is doing that which the 
former one should have done. 

Mr. Sayers : Mr. Chairman, I am sure my friend does 
not wish to misrepresent the administration of the pen- 
sion office. Now, does he not know that when the act of 
1890 was passed it became the policy of the administra- 
tion at that time, which was a Republican administration, 
to allow pensions exclusively under the act of 1890, and 
to pretermit for the time being the applications which 
had been made under previous pension laws and which 
involved the payment of large arrearages? Does he not 
know that to be the fact, and does he not also know that 
in order to execute the act of 1890 the force of the pen- 
sion office was increased by over 700 clerks? It was dis- 
tinctly stated before the committee on appropriations as 
a reason why this increase of clerks should be allowed 
that it was the intention of the administration to execute 
the act of 1890 as rapidly as possible. 

Mr. Lacey: I do not concur in all of the gentleman's 
statement. That the act of 1890 was given precedence in 
the pension office over the old law, "on account of the 
large arrearages " I do not concede ; but I do concede that 
preference was given to claims under the act of 1890 for 



228 MAJOR JOHN F. LACEY 

this simple reason : Under that act all the claimant had 
to do to get upon the roll was to prove that he was dis- 
abled, that he had an honorable discharge, that he had 
served ninety days or more in the Union army, and that 
his disability was not caused by vicious habits of his own. 
When this state of facts was established by the proofs, he 
was put on the roll for the disabilities existing, not ex- 
ceeding $12 a month. This made a simple and easy set- 
tlement of many cases, and as every man who applies un- 
der the old law would be entitled to apply under the new 
law in lieu of the old, cases under the new law that did 
not require any very technical examination were given 
precedence, and, following that, claims of the same sol- 
diers were adjusted under the old law. The man was 
taken out of the poorhouse, or at least given relief, under 
the act of 1890, and, following that, he was granted his 
rating under the old law, if it exceeded $12 a month. 

That method of settling claims was adopted, and I 
think it was wisely adopted. And there was no conceal- 
ment about it. Openly and fairly the administration 
adopted this course ; openly and fairly the commissioner 
of pensions appeared before the committees of Congress 
and asked additional allowance for clerk hire so that this 
class of claims might be taken up and adjusted, and that 
men who were not upon the pension roll at all, who had 
applied under the act of June, 1890, should speedily have 
their claims adjusted. And new claims were given pref- 
erence over claims of increase. 

There is another feature of the act of 1890 which has 
not been alluded to, and which ought to be fairly under- 
stood by this House. The great mass of cases allowed 
under the act of 1890 for disability were really allowed 
for disability contracted in the service ; but owing to the 
lapse of time, owing to the uncertainty and frailty of the 
human memory, owing to the death of witnesses, it has 



ADDRESSES OF MAJOR LACEY 229 

been impossible in many cases to prove up those claims. 
Consequently a man who had had a claim filed under the 
old law would change his application and accept a pen- 
sion under the new law, such pension being limited to 
$12 per month. This has been done in many cases where 
the disability was actually contracted in the service and 
in the line of duty. It was the purpose of the act of 1890 
to enable claimants to do this. 

To illustrate : Only a short time ago a man came to see 
me in regard to his pension application. He had lost one 
of his eyes in the service, yet he could not prove that 
fact. The injury was received from the explosion of a 
shell at Cold Harbor ; but the exact circumstances of the 
occurrence could not be proved, so far as his case was 
concerned, because by that same shot fourteen of the fif- 
teen men were killed or injured. The difficulty was to 
prove which persons were injured by the explosion, and 
the injury to his eye was slight in the beginning. This 
man had endeavored to prove up his case under the old 
law, but some of the witnesses were dead and others scat- 
tered in various parts of the county, and he had not seen 
them for thirty years. I said to him, "Simply put in 
your application under the new law, and the pension of- 
fice will give you a rating for the loss of your eye without 
proof that the injury originated in the service." Yet 
the man undoubtedly lost the sight of that eye by the ex- 
plosion of a shell, although it was impossible for him to 
prove it after so great a lapse of time. 

It was to cover cases of that kind that this law was 
adopted; yet the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. DeAr- 
mond) insists that we should first inquire in those cases 
whether the individual who has suffered an injury is able 
to support himself out of means which he may have ac- 
cumulated, whether he is capable of earning a living in 
some other way than by manual labor. If, for instance, 



230 MAJOR JOHN F. LACEY 

he is a lawyer or a doctor or a preacher, receiving in- 
come from his profession, the gentleman would exclude 
him. We had one case where the question came up as to 
whether a judge of the Supreme Court of one of the 
states could draw pension. He had been injured in such 
a way that his wound still required to be dressed every 
day. Twenty-five or thirty years after the war, and un- 
der the late administration, it was then held that inas- 
much as he was drawing salary as judge of the Supreme 
Court and able to live without the aid of the federal gov- 
ernment, he should not receive a pension. But such is 
not the policy on which our pension laws have ever been 
framed. The pauper idea has never gone into our pen- 
sion legislation; and it never ought to go there. 

The pensions granted in the earlier history of the gov- 
ernment were usually granted by direct act of Congress. 
If you will turn to the statute books of that period you 
will find page after page reciting the names of soldiers 
of the War of the Revolution to whom pensions were 
granted by special act. Congress at that time settled 
those questions directly, and the simple question was as 
to the character of service. As to the Mexican War, the 
length of service entitling a man to a pension was very 
short, much shorter than the act of 1890. 

Service pensions were allowed to soldiers of the Mex- 
ican War without reference to disability, the only limita- 
tion being one of age. The law referred to [mentioned 
by Representative Sayers] did not require the Mexican 
soldier to show disability contracted in the service. But 
such pensions were found inadequate in many instances, 
and special pensions in particular cases were granted by 
Congress to increase the amount, the original amount be- 
ing $8 a month. The original pension was not predicated 
upon the idea of poverty, but upon the idea of helpless- 
ness and poverty additional pensions were allowed in 



ADDRESSES OF MAJOR LACEY 231 

those cases. Then a general law was enacted increasing 
the Mexican service pensions to $12 where the soldier 
was dependent, but for disability contracted in that war 
it was not necessary to show dependence. 

Now I do not care to detain the committee longer upon 
this question. I regret to see this old straw thrashed 
over again by gentlemen on the other side of the House 
as it has been session after session in the past. The 
pension roll will grow small soon enough. It must of 
necessity become smaller rapidly from this time on, for 
the hand of death took 31,960 pensioners from the roll 
last year. This rate of death ought to satisfy the greatest 
pension hater in the land. The total number of pension- 
ers dropped last year from all causes was 41,122. Among 
the pensioners now on the roll are 65,869 minors who 
will soon pass the pensionable age. The average age of 
the soldiers of the late war is now fifty-six years. In 
fourteen years their average age will be seventy. It is 
true that as to widows the pension will continue for a 
long time. That involves another question, as to which 
a measure has been proposed in the House, and I believe 
also in the Senate, to limit the rights of widows to the 
law actually in existence at the time of their marriage. 
The passage of that law would of course put out perhaps 
ninety per cent or more of the widows of the soldiers of 
the late war, because the great bulk of those soldiers 
were too young during the time that the war was going 
on to be married. Whether that would be a wise meas- 
ure or not there will be time enough to discuss when it is 
brought before this body. As to the present appropria- 
tion, if it is not ample, an increased appropriation can be 
allowed. The amount embraced in this bill is precisely 
what the secretary of the interior has asked for. 



AT NORTHWEST IOWA VETERAN REUNION L 

Time and space work the miracle of bringing people 
nearer together. An American from California meeting 
another American from New York in Constantinople 
promptly recognizes him by his appearance and his 
clothes; and although their homes are three thousand 
miles apart they seem like next-door neighbors when 
they meet upon the shores of the Bosphorus. 

When the soldiers of the late war first came home, they 
felt no great anxiety to meet their comrades, except of 
their own company or regiment. Later on a member of 
their own brigade or division seemed like an old acquaint- 
ance; and as time progressed the range of comradeship 
enlarged until now the soldier of the Army of the Ten- 
nessee looks upon a comrade of the Army of the Potomac 
as though he had been a messmate. Thirty years have 
gone by; the individuality with which we have associated 
the contest disappears in the remote distance; and here 
on the prairies of northwestern Iowa each soldier is a 
comrade to every other man who wore the blue. State 
and corps lines are lost, and each man knows the other 
only as a defender of the Union. 

The prairies of northwestern Iowa did not send many 
soldiers to the front ; this region was then but thinly in- 
habited. When the war closed the soldiers turned their 
faces to the west, and today there is no place so remote, 
so far from the frontier but there you may meet some 
surviving member of the Grand Army of the Republic. 

History is said to be a resurrection of the dead; the 

1 Address by John F. Lacey delivered at Le Mars, Iowa, June 20, 1895. 



ADDRESSES OF MAJOR LACEY 233 

dead past and its dead actors, we bring forward today 
for the emulation of, and as an example to the living. 

The prophet Ezekiel twenty-five hundred years ago 
called upon the dry bones in the valley to rise and live, 
and lo! they stood before him; and the Lord said unto 
him, "Prophesy unto the wind, prophesy, son of man, and 
say to the wind, Thus saith the Lord God ; come from the 
four winds, breath, and breathe upon these slain, that 
they may live. So he prophesied as commanded, and the 
breath came into them, and they lived, and stood upon 
their feet, an exceeding great army." 37 Ezekiel. 

We cannot perform the miracle of Ezekiel, but in our 
minds on this occasion, let us bring back, as far as pos- 
sible, the memory of that great army of the dead who fell 
in our own war; or who have since its termination gone 
down to their graves in peace. 

The comrades who are here may recall forms and faces, 
and clothe their souls again with flesh, but to the younger 
generation that army is as much a thing of the past as 
the dead army of Israel. The average human life of a 
generation is thirty-three years, and a generation has 
passed since the period that we now recall. In those 
dreadful days grief burned faster than tears could drown. 
And, after this lapse of time, instead of grieving that 
these men are dead, we rejoice rather that they have 
lived. 

The Grand Army of the Republic feels no vindictive- 
ness after all these years; it is full of fraternity and 
charity and above all it places loyalty. The Grand Army, 
however, will always recognize the merit of having fought 
upon the right side in that contest. 

The old soldiers who are here today are not what they 
used to be. Not long ago I witnessed a soldiers' gather- 
ing where the veterans formed in line, with drums beat- 
ing and colors flying, and saw a young mother with her 



234 MAJOR JOHN F. LACEY 

baby cab charge right through the line. They were not 
as dangerous as they used to be. But though broken in 
body they are still strong in spirit. Their condition re- 
minds me of an incident I have heard in regard to some 
Japanese students in this county. In learning our lan- 
guage they first translated a sentence into Japanese, 
passed it to another one of the class who translated it 
back into English. They tried their apprentice hands on 
this sentence, ' ' The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak. ' ' 
It was translated into Japanese, given a coat of Japan 
varnish, and retranslated into English, when it was ren- 
dered: "The ghost wants to, but the fresh meat is 
feeble." And such is the situation of the boys here to- 
day. 

Last year four thousand of the veterans of '61 went 
down to their honored graves. It is well that these 
schools of patriotism should meet to revive the lessons 
of the past. The Grand Army dies day by day, and takes 
in no recruits ; but whilst the army dies its spirit and its 
principles live in the next generation. 

In looking back now over that stirring period, events 
seem to have been shaped by the hand of God; history 
has been directed by choice rather than chance. When 
Miltiades, the night before Marathon, called a council of 
war, the decision of the generals to fight was passed by 
a majority of one. The battle was fought, and the civil- 
ization of the whole world depended upon its success, and 
the effect of that battle has been projected into remote 
ages. The Greek civilization which triumphed on that 
day has shaped the destiny of the world. 

On the evening of the first day at Shiloh, General 
McPherson asked General Grant what steps he proposed 
to take to cross the river and save his army. Grant re- 
plied that he intended to resume the battle in the morn- 
ing and had no doubt of winning the victory. Choice 



ADDRESSES OF MAJOR LACEY 235 

rather than chance has shaped the course of history. 
Grant exercised choice; he did not yield to an adverse 
chance. 

Looking back now after so many years, it is evident 
that the decision of the war was the best for both parties. 
It brought peace with safety. For many years the 
Tweed flowed as the boundary between the hostile Scotch 
and English ; its waters were often dyed with the blood 
of armies. Now it flows through a united and peaceful 
people. But it is where union is combined with safety, 
and a due regard to the rights of the people involved, 
that such union brings peace and prosperity. The union 
of Alsace and Lorraine with Germany resulted in a cor- 
don of fieldworks and fortresses ; it is a union of force. 

Passing through that frontier today, the vast armies 
of France and Germany glare at each other over and 
across the line, waiting only for an opportunity to re- 
sume the contest. Had the secession movement proved 
successful our country would have had an arbitrary fron- 
tier line drawn from the Atlantic far into the interior. 
Rival custom houses would have stood on opposite sides 
of all rivers and railways at the boundary. All disputes 
between the two sections would have been settled by 
treaties, or by war. Now all matters of controversy are 
settled by a national Congress, in which every portion of 
the Union is represented. Statutes and judicial decisions 
take the place of diplomacy and guns. This Union has 
cost much in blood, treasure, and tears, but it is well 
worth the cost. The people of each section are of kindred 
blood; they come from a common stock; their ancestors 
sought these shores for a common purpose; their inter- 
ests were united. 

In reading the reports of a general in the opposing 
army the other day, in regard to one of the bloody battles 
of the war, I found that the Confederate government had 



236 MAJOR JOHN F. LACEY 

issued general orders, mentioning as a subject of special 
distinction, the name of Sergeant A. J. Hinkle, Twelfth 
Missouri, and Thomas Connor of the Eleventh Missouri, 
both killed in that battle. On the Union side, Thomas 
Hinkle of the Thirty-third Iowa and Thomas Connor of 
the same regiment were also killed. The Confederate 
Thomas Connor was mentioned in special orders issued 
by the rebel adjutant-general at Richmond. His name 
was published in the "Confederate Roll of Honor." 

Thomas Connor, the Union soldier, has a Grand Army 
post named after him at Rose Hill, Iowa. Men of the 
same name, of the same family, fought on opposite sides 
in that struggle. It was much the best that peace should 
bring them together again, as a united and friendly peo- 
ple, instead of as rival and hostile nations. Choice ruled, 
not chance, and human slavery disappeared forever from 
the continent of North America. 

The greatest mistake of our country's settlement was 
the introduction of African slavery. It was the cause of 
strife. The hold of the slaver that brought the first 
cargo was freighted with misery to people long after to 
be born. 

I have recently read and reread Jefferson Davis's His- 
tory of the Confederacy. It is a large volume of 500 
pages, and the main purpose of that book was to prove 
that slavery was not the cause of the war. Even Jefferson 
Davis, at the end of twenty-five years from emancipa- 
tion, did not raise his voice in the defense of that institu- 
tion, but rather sought to relieve himself and his cause 
of the odium which attached to the defense of so great a 
wrong. He laboriously attempted to prove that it was 
not slavery, but the tariff which was the cause of that 
devastating war. 

No soldier here cherishes ill-will to any Confederate 
soldier, living or dead — brave men can always be char- 



ADDRESSES OF MAJOR LACEY 237 

itable. When Grant gave back to Lee's army their cav- 
alry horses to plow with, it was an omen of peace. 

No man can now be buried in one of our national cem- 
eteries who did not stand upon the side of the right, when 
men were so much needed. No man can join the Grand 
Army of the Republic who did not qualify himself by 
service under the flag, from 1861 to 1865. The little army 
badge, made from captured cannon, can be worn by no 
man who at any time was false to his county. 

At the inauguration of President Harrison, on the 4th 
of March, 1889, the Senate chamber was brilliant with 
the uniforms of the diplomatic corps and of the army and 
navy. The galleries were gay with the beautiful cos- 
tumes of the women. The supreme judges, clad in their 
robes of black silk, made a striking contrast with the gay 
trappings around them. When the retired general of 
the army, who had the right to wear the full uniform of 
his rank, came in, tall, erect, and with his keen eye as 
bright as ever, every eye centered upon him. Presidents 
have been inaugurated before, presidents would be in- 
augurated again, but ages would not again produce a 
William Tecumseh Sherman. Dressed in a plain suit of 
black, the only mark of distinction of any kind that he 
wore was the little badge of the Grand Army of the Re- 
public, which was pimied upon his breast, right over his 
manly heart. 

General Sherman was proud of this little badge; it 
placed him on an equality with the youngest private in 
his army. The right to wear it could only be acquired 
by service on the right side in the war for the Union. The 
time to obtain that right has passed forever. 

I once heard Governor Flower of New York say that 
he was at the right age to have fought in the war, but 
that he had spent that time in laying a foundation for his 
great fortune. He said, "But I would rather have the 



238 MAJOR JOHN F. LACEY 

right to wear the badge of the Grand Army than to hold 
the title to all the fortune that I have won in my life." 
It is the creed of every Union soldier to love his state; 
but to love the Union as a whole, is a love above and be- 
yond the love of even the state of his birth or the state of 
his adoption. 

On occasions like the present we again sing the songs 
and hear the tunes of the war of 1861 ; but in capturing 
the Confederate forces and bringing back these states 
again into the Union, we capture and appropriate their 
music as well. 

John Wesley, in speaking of the adoption by him, of 
the popular airs of his day, and their use, by setting them 
to hymns, said, that "he did not want the devil to have 
any of the good tunes." And in the same spirit our 
bands play "Dixie," "Yankee Doodle," "Maryland," 
and "Marching Through Georgia." And the music that 
once stirred the hearts of one or the other of the hostile 
armies now rouses enthusiasm among both — and why 
should we not do this? 

The power of music was strikingly illustrated on one 
occasion during the siege of Vicksburg. The Chicago 
Board of Trade regiment was lying in the trenches, when 
Jules and Frank Lombard, the great singers, visited 
some of their Chicago friends, in the shelter of the be- 
sieging earthworks. Here and there along the line the 
cannon boomed at intervals; the firing was not steady, 
but the cracking of the rifle of the sharpshooter kept 
everybody on the alert. Some of the soldiers asked the 
Lombard boys to sing, and they struck up some popular 
air, and as their clear and powerful voices carried the 
melody across the lines the firing slackened and soon 
ceased altogether along that part of the lines. Having 
first sung some popular songs, which might be enjoyed 
on both sides, they sang "The Star Spangled Banner," 



ADDRESSES OF MAJOR LACEY 239 

"The Red, White, and Blue," and then followed with 
some of the more recent songs of the war. 

The sharpshooters had ceased to ply their deadly arms ; 
men on both sides climbed out on the top of the earth- 
works, and for one foe to shoot another under these 
circumstances would have been looked on as foul murder. 
As the singers ended the national songs, a Confederate 
soldier cried out, "Halloo, there; isn't that Jules and 
Frank Lombard?" and the answer went back that it was. 
Then, "Sing us Dixie," shouted the rebel; and the Lom- 
bard boys sang "Dixie" and "The Bonnie Blue Flag,''' 
and cheers went up from the beleaguered host. And then 
the singers struck up "Home, Sweet Home," and every 
heart on both sides beat in response. Memory turned 
alike to the homes in Illinois and in Iowa, in Georgia and 
in Tennessee ; and when the strains died away there were 
a few minutes of absolute silence, and then one of the 
Board of Trade regiment cried out, "Hallo, Johnny; 
look out, the concert is over." All clambered back into 
their trenches again and grim visaged war again took 
possession of the scene. 

The example of charity was set by the hardest fighter 
of the war — Grant — who slew more Confederates, cap- 
tured more prisoners, and crushed more armies than any 
of the other commanders on our side, but always spared 
his enemies when it could be done without danger to his 
cause. Yet he allowed no human life to stand in the way 
of the success of the Union. 

Let us compare his course at Petersburg with that of 
the greatest general of all time — Napoleon — at Auster- 
litz. After the bloody contest, amid the snow and ice at 
Austerlitz, two thousand Russians took shelter upon a 
frozen lake ; upon the further shore there was still open 
water, and they found themselves in the middle of the 
lake with all the avenues of escape cut off. 



240 MAJOR JOHN F. LACEY 

Napoleon, instead of calling upon them to surrender, 
caused his artillery to break the ice with round shot, and 
the Russian forces were buried in the icy waves. Let us 
turn from this scene of horror to the example of our own 
Grant. 

On the day that the Confederates evacuated Peters- 
burg, and as they were marching through the streets, 
abandoning the works to join Lee at Five Forks and Ap- 
pomattox, an officer hastened to Grant and told him that 
the enemy were marching below in masses, where they 
could readily be destroyed by artillery, and asked leave 
to open on them. Grant went to a point where he could 
look over the ground and saw an opportunity for terrific 
slaughter of the fleeing army. He replied: "No, let 
them go ; we will capture them all alive in a day or two ; 
they cannot escape me." And in his Memoirs, he speaks 
of the storming of the works at Mobile, which occurred 
on the same day as the surrender of Lee, as being exceed- 
ingly unfortunate, although resulting in victory to the 
Union cause, because, as he said, every life lost in that 
battle produced unnecessary suffering, for Lee's surren- 
der ended the war in fact. 

When this old hero of the war was mustered out on the 
top of Mt. McGregor, it brought no rejoicing to his 
former foes. His magnanimity in victory won for him 
that respect from those he conquered, that he enjoyed 
from both victory and defeat in the hearts of his own 
soldiers. Grant conquered twice, first in war and then 
in peace. Buckner of Donelson helped to carry him to 
the grave. 

In recalling again these scenes of the past, let us not 
forget one of the saddest chapters of the war. The 
mothers, wives, the sisters, and the daughters of that 
period bore burdens and cares that the present genera- 
tion can hardly comprehend. We must not forget them. 



ADDRESSES OF MAJOR LACEY 241 

Leaving the part of Hamlet out of the play of Hamlet 
would be more reasonable than leaving Juliet out of Ro- 
meo and Juliet. The story of the war is wholly incom- 
plete without the women of the war. 

Correspondence from home was the constant solace of 
the soldier in the field. But rare indeed was any letter 
ever received which did not urge the soldier in the front 
to do his duty to the end. Fellow-citizens, on such oc- 
casions as these, we lay aside all matters of differences 
in politics; we meet today not as partisans, but as pa- 
triots. All religious creeds, except the broadest and most 
comprehensive principles of Christian fellowship, are 
forgotten on an occasion like this. 

Whilst from this platform nothing would be more im- 
proper than to discuss the relative merits of different 
political parties; still I will go far enough to say that 
every American, young or old, should manifest his con- 
cern in public affairs by taking an active interest in all 
political questions. I believe it is better to be on the 
wrong side of a question of this kind than upon no side. 

The man who makes a mistake by taking the wrong 
side of a public question may, upon consideration, change 
his views ; but the man who feels so little interest in his 
country as to stand neutral upon living issues, is not so 
likely to get right upon anything. He is a deadhead on 
the body politic. As wind purifies the air, as the current 
enlivens the water of the stagnant pool, so activity in 
political life makes the body politic vigorous and healthy. 
Whilst people remain awake and take sides, they will con- 
tinue to deserve to be free. 

The greatest of all centuries is coming to a close ; the 
eastern sky is already lightened with the approaching 
dawn of the twentieth century. On no country does that 
century bid fair to rise so gloriously as upon our own. 

When the war of 1861 broke out, ours was a nation of 



242 MAJOR JOHN F. LACEY 

thirty million people; eight thousand millions worth of 
property was destroyed ; hundreds of thousands of lives 
were lost, and hundreds of thousands of men carry with 
them still the marks of that contest. But in spite of it 
all, our country today is the home of more than seventy 
millions of people ; no slave lives within its borders, and 
the example of Lincoln has been followed in Russia and 
Brazil. And that institution, which was so proud and 
haughty in the middle of the present century, bids fair 
to become extinct the world over before the twentieth 
century is ushered in. 

Out of the old field comes new corn; out of the past 
battle-fields arise examples that will teach while time 
lasts. As the survivors pass away new generations fall 
into line and take up the story and pass it on to the youth 
of the next, and in commemorating the past we are guard- 
ing safely the heritage of the future. 

At this reunion the Women's Relief Corps represents 
the women of the war and their descendants. To the 
mothers of that war I have already referred. The Sons 
of Veterans are present and in the event of another war 
they would undoubtedly take the places of their sires in 
a way that would do honor to their pedigree. The world 
would repeat the old Greek proverb: "This is not 
Achilles' son, this is Achilles himself." 

It was the good fortune of the late war to bring into 
play a wide range of talent. This is evident when we look 
upon any gathering of the survivors. The soldiers on 
both sides were not machines; the armies of that war 
were thinking machines. George Eliot describes a game 
of chess in which the pawns and other pieces thought and 
made moves on their own account, thus greatly compli- 
cating the game to be played. It was such a game as this 
that was played in 1861. Many a battle turned on the 
active and quick thought of some young volunteer officer 



ADDRESSES OF MAJOR LACEY 243 

or soldier who saw the turning point and caught the situ- 
ation in time and turned defeat into victory by some move 
not ordered by the master of the game. The real hero of 
that war was the private soldier. 

When the war closed many were the forebodings of the 
results of the return of those great armies to civil life. 
It was freely prophesied that the soldiers would fill our 
poor-houses, our jails, and our penitentiaries, but the 
world was disappointed in the result. These conse- 
quences have often followed the disbanding of armies; 
but the result depends upon the kind of an army that has 
disbanded. 

Macaulay tells us the result of the mustering out of the 
Puritanic army of Cromwell, when the Stuarts again 
ascended the throne, was : 

The troops were now disbanded. Fifty thousand men, accus- 
tomed to the profession of arms, were at once thrown on the 
world; and experience seemed to warrant the belief that this 
throng would produce much misery and crime; that the dis- 
charged veterans would be seen begging in every street, or would 
be driven by hunger to pillage. But no such result followed. 
In a few months there remained not a trace indicating that the 
most formidable army in the world had just been absorbed with 
the mass of the community. The royalists themselves confessed 
that, in every department of honest industry the discarded war- 
riors prospered beyond other men; that none was charged with 
any theft or robbery ; that none was heard to ask alms ; and that 
if a baker, a mason, or a wagoner attracted notice by his dil- 
igence and sobriety he was, in all probability, one of Oliver's old 
soldiers. 

Unlike the soldiers of Cromwell, however, the armies 
of the war of '61, when they returned home, took their 
positions in every avenue and walk of civil life. No place 
was too good for them; no position was too high for 
them. 

The name of the general who commanded is merely the 



244 MAJOR JOHN F. LACEY 

name of the force or movement under his command; 
when we speak of the march to the sea, we give it the 
name of Sherman. When we describe the battle in the 
clouds at Lookout, we call it Hooker; when we speak of 
the great Confederate charge at Gettysburg, we call it 
Pickett; the track of flame down the valley of Virginia, 
we speak of as Sheridan. The deadly contest in the 
wilderness we call Grant. But in all these cases, on 
which ever side the victory came, it was due, after all, to 
the heroism, the patience, the obedience, and the self-for- 
getfulness of the young soldier. 

After Napoleon's army died in the snows of Russia, 
there was no longer a Napoleon. The finest generalship, 
the most untiring efforts were made by Napoleon after 
that, but in vain. The Grand Army upon which his em- 
pire had been built was dead. No leader can accomplish 
anything without men. An army is the strongest of all 
arguments. 

The great general who led a million men against Rus- 
sia soon found himself at Elba followed by the most 
pestiferous of all annoyances, his wife's millinery bills. 
Without his army he was nothing. 

Whilst good has come out of the war, yet it was so full 
of evils that every man who remembers that period hopes 
never to see its like again. Foreign war has been re- 
ferred to as the heat of exercise, whilst a civil war is the 
heat of a fever. 

The citizen soldiers of the republic at every meeting 
controlled by them, should seek to turn that meeting to 
the advantage of their country. Amid the turbulence 
and riots of 1893 it was a gratifying fact that but one of 
those disturbances was led by an old soldier. 

How to take care of the future is a question for us all. 
Education is the best safeguard for a nation's stability. 
In looking back, however, we are reminded that it was 



ADDRESSES OF MAJOR LACEY 245 

ignorant old Rome that conquered the world, and learned 
Rome that lost it. But learned Rome, though filled with 
scholars, had no educated common people. The training 
of the masses was in the wrong direction. Whenever a 
Roman legion was stationed in the province there we find 
a center of education ; but corruption in the center sapped 
the vitals of the nation, and Rome fell. 

In our country, the universal dissemination of a sub- 
stantial education among the common people is the best 
guarantee of our future. Lincoln said, "God must have 
loved the common people or he would not have made so 
many of them. ' ' 

Comrades, we have done our part towards making this 
country and generation better than the past. There has 
never been a period in any country when there was not a 
large class of pessimists who constantly held up to view 
the worst side of everything. Like crooked mirrors they 
distort everything that they reflect. To hear them speak 
you would believe that this nation was already going over 
the falls. Every evil is magnified and the good is wholly 
overlooked. 

When we listen to these mutterings we are taught that 
all of the dead have died in vain. That is nothing new ; 
this same old cry has gone up from generation to genera- 
tion. 

Cobbett hoped for war; he said he was willing to have 
three hundred thousand men killed in order to get rid of 
six men that he did not like — the six men being the Eng- 
lish ministry. In spite of all these gloomy forebodings, 
the world has steadily gone forward and upward. There 
is a constant ebb and flow in progress; things mental, 
moral, and material, like the waves, sweep forward, fall 
back, and again advance, always rising a little higher 
than before. 

We must not, however, shut our eyes to things which 



246 MAJOR JOHN F. LACEY 

need improvement and reform. The improvement is not 
made by those who always turn their eyes to the past, 
and see nothing good that is present or future. They al- 
ways ride backward, they should turn the seat and face 
the future for awhile, not with gloom and despair, but 
with hope and courage. This is one of the distinctive 
good qualities of the old soldier. He constantly looks 
forward to a better day; the journey may be long, the 
way may be weary, but the camp is beyond. 

In remaining true to the nation we cannot fail to be 
true to each other. Enmity should be mortal, friendship 
immortal. Day by day fresh gaps are made in our 
ranks; as we go forward let us close up and keep the 
touch of elbow to the last. 



WHY DO WE CREATE BATTLEFIELD PARKS 
AND ERECT MONUMENTS THEREON? 1 

The celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of any event 
by survivors is something which must always be tinged 
with more or less sadness and disappointment. It is a 
short time in the history of a nation, but a long time in 
the life of a man. 

The average of a generation is thirty-three years. No 
wonder that so few survivors appear here today. But 
there are still many left of the great host who battled 
here in 1862, and they are with one accord turning their 
thoughts in this direction today. Their hearts are with 
us. 

The first day at Shiloh ended in gloom, and night 
closed in on the silent dead and amid the groans of the 
wounded. 

The Iowa monument now stands renewed for its second 
day at Shiloh. It has not yielded to defeat. It has risen 
again from its overthrow. May it stand as a mute elo- 
quent memorial of the heroism of the sons of Iowa for 
thousands of years to come. 

Battles are turning points in the world's history, and 
to the scene of one of these sanguinary struggles the hu- 
man imagination always turns with profound interest. 

In all days and generations a pyramid or a mound has 
been the most common memorial of a battlefield, and 
under such mounds are usually interred the remains of 
the dead. 

The great mound at Waterloo, surmounted by the col- 

i Address of Major John F. Lacey, April 7, 1912, at Shiloh Battle 
Ground, Tennessee, on the fiftieth anniversary of the battle. 



248 MAJOR JOHN F. LACEY 

ossal Belgian lion, marks the spot where the Old Guard 
went down in final defeat, after Napoleon had dominated 
the world for twenty years. And when I visited this 
monument a few years ago the straws hung from the open 
jaws of the lion, showing that the doves of peace had 
there built their nest. 

At Cheronea the Greek mound marks the spot where 
their heroes were buried twenty-three hundred years ago, 
and in the broken fragments of the old lion on that mound 
the wild bees have made their home. 

When the warring hosts cease their contests peace re- 
sumes its sway, and the birds are in possession of the 
field at Shiloh. 

Germany has erected a monument to the great Armin- 
ius, who overthrew a splendid Roman army in the days of 
Augustus, and whose name troubled the sleep of the Em- 
peror and led him to cry aloud in the anguish of his 
heart : "0, Valens, give me back my legions ! ' ' 

Jinghis Khan erected a pyramid of skulls to commem- 
orate his victories — the most ghastly memorial of the 
scourge of mankind. These monuments have usually cel- 
ebrated the victories of aggression but it has remained 
to the people of our country to make a memorial or mon- 
ument of the battlefield itself. 

These national parks are created rather to commem- 
orate the full and complete reconciliation that has come 
upon the participants in our Civil War. As the war of 
York and Lancaster ended in the union of the Red and 
White Roses, so the reunion of the states is cemented 
upon every battlefield of the war. 

We have met on one of the greatest of these battle- 
fields, upon the fiftieth anniversary of the contest. To- 
day we stand among the trees, where the whistling bullet, 
the shrieking shot and shell dealt such havoc ; and best of 



ADDRESSES OF MAJOR LACEY 249 

all we meet on this scene as friends rejoicing in a Union 
cemented by so much of sorrow and strife. 

From Bull Run to Appomattox as the crow flies is only 
one hundred and twenty miles, but that journey covered 
thousands of miles through many states. Measured by 
time it was a journey of four years: measured in blood 
and tears it was a thousand years. 

The journey was by various and devious routes: 
through mud and mire, through sunshine and through 
storm, through summer heats and winter snows, through 
dangers by flood and fire, through dangers by stream and 
wood, through sickness and sorrow, and by the wayside 
death always stalked and grimly claimed his own. 

The real monument of that war after all is not the 
marble and granite that celebrates the life and death of 
heroes, or preserves their features or names for the study 
of generations yet to come. 

Under St. Paul's Cathedral in London is the tomb of 
Sir Christopher Wren, who designed the beautiful build- 
ing and constructed it from corner stone to spire. His 
epitaph is short and simple : " If you would see my mon- 
ument, look around you!" 

If you would see the true monument of these dead, and 
of their surviving comrades, look around you wherever 
you may be. A united country is their monument. Their 
monument can be seen from the car windows of forty- 
eight prosperous states. 

The monuments erected by the living to the dead honor 
the living even more than they honor the dead. And here 
upon this southern battlefield, surrounded by men who 
fought on both sides, we may quote with our approval the 
immortal and prophetic words of Shakespeare : 

Our peace will like a broken limb united 
Grow stronger for the breaking. 



250 MAJOR JOHN F. LACEY 

And so it is the wounded shell fish that produces the 
pearl. 

The high water mark of the Confederacy was reached 
at Gettysburg, and that turning point was dedicated by 
the immortal address of Abraham Lincoln. His declara- 
tion that ' ' The world will little regard what we say here, 
but will always remember what they did here, " is as true 
also of Shiloh. 

Shiloh was dedicated fifty years ago by the men who 
fought and died and by the men who fought and lived. 

But in the wildest dreams of the participants in that 
bloody battle no one thought that any of the generation 
engaged in that contest would live to see the men on both 
sides setting it apart as a memorial to heroism, and ded- 
icated to the perpetuity of the Union of the states. 

Vicksburg's grim walls stood as a barrier to the com- 
merce of the Father of Waters, and there, too, was an- 
other one of the turning points in our history. There the 
titanic battle raged for months, and little did the com- 
batants think that they were preparing the field for a 
beautiful park dedicated to Peace and Union. 

Both armies worshiped the same God. Lincoln and 
Stonewall Jackson offered up prayers for victory and a 
just God answered the prayers as was best for them all. 

The night before Blenheim Marlborough took the Holy 
Sacrament and prepared to conquer or die. When the 
Swiss troops at Granson knelt to pray before going into 
battle the courtiers of Charles the Bold said, "Sire, they 
are kneeling in submission," but Charles knew they were 
praying to the Almighty and preparing for death or vic- 
tory, and that their reverent attitude showed them to be 
most dangerous to their enemies. They feared God, only. 

A hundred years ago bloodletting was the cure for all 
diseases. This sanguinary remedy has gone into disuse, 
and I trust the time will come when such heroic treatment 



ADDRESSES OF MAJOR LACEY 251 

as war produces will no longer need to be used through- 
out the world. The arbitrament of justice will take the 
place of the sword. 

Let us hope that Famine, Fire, and Sword will cease to 
crouch like hounds at the heels of Mars waiting for em- 
ployment. 

Comrades, youth, like the aloe, blooms but once. The 
men who join in this semi-centennial reunion must of 
necessity be growing old, though they were but boys in 
1862. But they are not out of date ; they see things de- 
nied to the sight of the younger generation. 

The soul's dark cottage, battered and decayed, 

Lets in the light through chinks that time hath made. 

We are all united here today, we have no quarrel, un- 
less it be like that of the newly married couple, who dis- 
puted vigorously over the question as to which loved the 
other best. Let the dispute ever proceed as to whether 
the North or the South is the most devoted to the flag of 
the Union. 

Hate is love turned wrong side out. The hate of 1862 
has turned again to love. A kind hand clenched makes 
an ugly fist — but when it opens again it is ready for a 
welcoming grasp. 

The North and the South are united as they never were 
before since the closing days of the Revolution. When 
King James II at La Hogue was watching his French al- 
lies in their battle for his restoration, and the French 
were driven back, the fugitive king cried exultantly, ' ' See 
how my brave English fight. ' ' 

After Bull Run Charles Francis Adams attended a 
levee of the Queen at London and some of the English 
present said tauntingly: "Mr. Minister, these Confed- 
erates fight well. ' ' 

Mr. Adams proudly replied : "Of course they do, they 
are my countrymen." 



252 MAJOR JOHN F. LACEY 

And let me say for the soldiers North and South, that 
I can recall no instance since the war when one of these 
men ever led a mob. 

Montesquieu has said . "Happy is that nation whose 
annals are tiresome." 

More stirring history was crowded into the brief four 
years of the Civil War than in any five times that length 
of peaceful years. There are vacant spots in the sky. 
And in no period of the world's history have there been 
more fruitful years with their harvest of heroic deeds. 

That war was long anticipated by far-seeing men. Its 
occurrence was delayed by many timely compromises, but 
its final coming was inevitable. 

It could be delayed, not prevented. The cape at the 
southern point of Africa was long marked upon the map 
as the "Cape of Storms." When it was at last circum- 
navigated it became the "Cape of Good Hope" instead, 
and it will always remain so. 

Now that the struggle of 1861 to 1865 is over the coun- 
try has come to look upon it as bringing new and better 
conditions, and the making of a homogeneous union of 
states. 

A divided nation of 30,000,000 people in 1861 is now a 
united country of 90,000,000 souls. Buckner and Grant 
were cadets at West Point and were boyhood friends. 
They again met in the heat of war at Donelson, but when 
Grant's life went out on Mount McGregor, Buckner, with 
tender hands and moist eyes, acted as pall-bearer for the 
Great Commander. 

And each side honors itself in paying tribute to its 
former opponents. Defeat is less bitter at the hands of a 
noble foe, and victory the sweeter when won over a brave 
enemy. And when united such opponents have nothing 
to fear from the rest of the world. 

In a calm sea every man is a pilot. In the stormy 



ADDRESSES OF MAJOR LACEY 253 

times, of which we are speaking, the greatest skill was 
needed; but in the history of our country no great oc- 
casion has arisen in which the man of the hour did not 
appear. Pilots may steer but the winds, the tides, and 
the currents move the ship. 

In those weary days, "Grief burned faster than tears 
could drown," but the end came at last, and now, after 
fifty years, it seems like a frightful dream. Many of the 
old men of that day still hang on like oak leaves in the 
late winter, and a goodly number are now gathered in one 
of the most remarkable reunions of all time. 

The magnitude of that contest is difficult of compre- 
hension to the generation of today. The Greek children 
were taught to commit to memory the names of the three 
hundred heroes who fell at Thermopylae. But so great 
was the Civil War that the mere cost of compiling and 
printing its official record was $3,000,000. Human mem- 
ory could only contain its principal events. 

When I visited the Wilderness Battle Ground a few 
years ago, I sought for some memento to carry home, and 
in one of the trees hung an empty hornets' nest, collected 
by nature's little warriors in time of peace, and it now 
hangs in my library as a suitable memorial of an empty 
battlefield. The Hornets' Nest Brigade is here today, 
but without their stings. Nature, the all-forgiving, takes 
the red battlefield in her arms and hides it with flowers 
and harvests. 

In Shiloh Park is commemorated the first great battle 
of the war where a large part of the troops on both sides 
had seen but little of drill and discipline, but where they, 
nevertheless, fought with heroic valor. 

At Gettysburg may be seen in the fertile fields of an 
old and populous state the memorial of trained and tried 
troops coming on both sides from many a well-contested 
field. 



254 MAJOR JOHN F. LACEY 

"Whilst at Vicksburg, the scene of a great siege bears 
in memory that companion victory in the west which, with 
Helena and Port Hudson, proclaimed that the waters of 
the mighty Mississippi should thenceforth flow unvexed 
to the sea. 

And the great field at Chickamauga, Mission Ridge, 
and Lookout Mountain show an unequaled panorama 
where the contest furnished such a scenic spectacle as 
has probably never been equaled on the planet. 

And, lastly, Appomattox marks the end of the struggle 
and the beginning of the new order of things. The world 
is a battlefield of accomplishment and endeavor, but the 
places where great issues have been fought out are 
worthy of special commemoration. 

As we gather inspiration while standing by the graves 
of the world's heroic dead, so should we gather fresh en- 
couragement by standing amid the scenes of the great 
battles of the past. The importance of a battle is not 
measured by its bloodshed. 

Only 192 Greeks fell at Marathon, and that victory was 
a turning point in the history of civilization that is felt 
even at this day. Only nineteen graves are at Appomat- 
tox. The Union dead were taken to City Point, but one 
was overlooked and so it happens that on the Confederate 
Memorial day eighteen Confederates and one Union sol- 
dier bivouac upon that historic battlefield and are all 
alike covered with flowers by the tender hands of the 
Southern women. 

Only one American soldier fell in Dewey's victory at 
Manila Bay, but his death marked another of the turning 
points in history. 

Comrades, on this historic field you did your duty well 
a half century ago. Undiscouraged by defeat the lesson 
was learned that a battle is not fought in one day ; that a 
defeat may be turned into victory. We have learned 



ADDRESSES OF MAJOR LACEY 255 

now, too, that such a victory may in the end — under be- 
nign Providence — become a victory for all who fought 
on that field. It is the flag of the united country that 
daily floats over this national battlefield park from sun- 
rise to sunset, and with one accord we hope that it may 
float there forever. 



MEMORIAL DAY 1 

Memorial day services are annual recurring schools of 
patriotism : ' ' Out of the old fields cometh the new corn. ' ' 

We meet today to talk over and again recall the old 
story of the past. The Ten Commandments, the Creed, 
and the Sermon on the Mount cannot be repeated too 
often. The history of our country's progress, its trials 
and the sacrifices of its heroic dead, though old, is ever 
new Destiny is seldom foreseen and never prevented; 
things are stronger than men. Whilst this nation has 
struggled in order to work out its own destiny in the his- 
tory of the world, events seem to have shaped themselves 
beyond the power of man to control. 

We are now ready to sum up the history of the world's 
greatest century. The war of 1861 was the penalty paid 
by this country for the stupendous wrong of human 
slavery. The older people here remember the existence 
of the institution, but it lingers in their minds with the 
ancient history of a thousand years ago. 

Lincoln now belongs to the ages; his was the kindest 
and tenderest heart of the century, yet he was stricken 
down as the final sacrifice to the institution which pro- 
duced the Civil War. 

Peace came with safety and it was peace with honor. 
The war was worth all it cost in treasure, blood, and 
tears. But for the mighty pension roll and the vast rows 
of whitened headstones in the national cemeteries it 
would be hard to realize the magnitude of that struggle. 
The comrades of that war grow nearer to each other 

i Address by John F. Lacey delivered at Clarinda, Iowa, May 30, 1899. 



ADDRESSES OF MAJOR LACEY 257 

with each recurring year. In 1861 — thirty-eight years 
ago — the bond of sympathy between the soldier from 
Maine and one from Iowa was long drawn out; but as 
time goes by, the soldiers of distant commands thrown 
together today feel the same comradeship that they for- 
merly attached only to those with whom they immediate- 
ly served. 

The ranks of the Grand Army are growing shorter but 
more compact than ever. Civil wars have been in all 
times proverbial for their bitterness. We rejoice today 
for the utter elimination of all these feelings from the 
hearts of the old soldiers, North and South. 

An army is the strongest of all arguments ; from the re- 
sults of its decisions there is no appeal. The most pleas- 
ing thing in connection with our present reconciliation 
is the satisfaction shown by the defeated side who now 
have no further desire for any appeal. 

The year 1898 will be ever memorable in our history. 
I was one of those who believed that a genuine reconcilia- 
tion between all sections of this country had taken place 
and had steadily, though gradually, deepened into a uni- 
versal feeling of national patriotism. 

The year before our war with Spain began an oppor- 
tunity occurred to me to speak from the same platform 
with a Confederate soldier at Lexington, Virginia, where 
the bodies of Lee and Stonewall Jackson lie buried. I 
took as lofty grounds of national patriotism and union 
as my use of language was capable of expressing. I 
looked into the faces of the old Confederate soldiers pres- 
ent and of the younger generation who had grown up 
since the war. The Confederate speaker told his audi- 
ence that Lee was a great man. I was pleased at the ex- 
pression of my hearers and at their responsive mani- 
festations when I told them there was only one standard 
by which to measure a man, and that was by another 



258 MAJOR JOHN F. LACEY 

man, and that Lee had had a supreme test when measured 
in the high standard of Ulysses S. Grant. 

I had spoken at many soldiers ' reunions and memorial 
services, but this was the first occasion on which I had 
the opportunity to address the old soldiers of the other 
side. Looking in their eyes on that day I believed that 
they and their children would be true if occasion should 
offer for the trial. 

In 1898 the opportunity came. Making a hurried trip 
into Virginia in May last, I met a regiment dressed in 
blue coming out of one of the gaps of the Blue Ridge: 
they were on their way to Cuba to fight under the stars 
and stripes, and they were the sons of Stonewall Jack- 
son's soldiers. 

Later in the summer I visited Chickamauga and there 
amid the battle monuments of that heroic field, I found 
an Iowa regiment brigaded with the First Mississippi, 
fraternizing on as friendly terms as an Iowa and Indiana 
regiment used to do. And one Mississippi soldier said 
to me, ''The only difference between you all and we all 
is that you all guess and we all reckon." That seemed 
to be about all that was left and that was not enough to 
quarrel over. 

The soldier of 1898 showed himself to be a true de- 
scendant of the soldier of 1861; as the Greek put it, 
"This is not Achilles' son, it is Achilles himself." 

Our range of vision has wonderfully widened as the re- 
sult of the short, decisive, and glorious victories of Manila 
and Santiago. It almost takes one's breath to think of 
the far reaching effects of recent events. 

The steamer Grant, named after the silent commander, 
recently steamed under the guns of Gibraltar, passed the 
shores of Malta through the Suez Canal ; and the Amer- 
ican soldiers stood upon the deck and watched the clouds 
hovering around the pinnacle of Mount Sinai, then passed 



ADDRESSES OF MAJOR LACEY 259 

through the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean to the far- 
away Philippines. A few weeks later the steamer Sher- 
man, laden with American soldiers, followed the same 
course. Then the Sheridan passed over the same seas; 
three ships carrying- the names of Grant, Sherman, and 
Sheridan to the uttermost parts of the earth as the sea 
again became the home of our country 's flag. 

This is neither time nor place for the discussion of 
questions which may be regarded as political. I have 
never to my knowledge violated the proprieties of this 
day by such discussion, and will only say that when our 
soldiers were assaulted in the trenches in a bloody at- 
tack by those whom they had gone so many thousand 
miles to befriend, from that hour there has been but one 
side of this contest for me and that is the side of the boys 
who are carrying our flag in that distant land. And 
when Dewey returns to the United States he will receive 
such a royal welcome as no man has known since Grant 
swung around the circle with Andrew Johnson soon after 
the close of the Civil War. 

Comrades, we may grow old, but I trust we will never 
grow out of date. No woman is any older than she looks 
and no man is any older than he feels. Let us keep our 
hearts young by keeping their beat in unison with the 
new generation. 

The coming century is full of hope and promise. The 
century that is now just passing away is greater than any 
that have preceded. 

It almost dazzles the mind to think of what may come 
in the next hundred years. The beginning of the century 
saw Russia overthrow Napoleon and change the history 
of Europe. And now as the century closes the czar has 
called a conference to consider the disarmament of the 
world. 



260 MAJOR JOHN F. LACEY 

You will not live, comrades, to see the great things of 
the next century, but you have seen and also have been a 
part of the greatness of the century that is about to pass 
away. 

The greatest event, and the one that will reach the 
furthest into the future, was the struggle in which you 
took part, and the decision in that contest settled the 
question as to the permanence and union of the great na- 
tion to which we belong. 

In gathering on this occasion we hold an annual fes- 
tival of flowers for the dead. If there is any substance 
ethereal and delicate enough in all the earth to reach the 
spirits of the dead, it seems that it would be the invisible 
odor of the flowers. In all nations and in all ages flowers 
have been looked upon as the proper offering to the de- 
parted. 

Hail to the dead — the nation 's dead — 

Who sleep by wood and field and shore ! 
To them we come with loyal tread 

And kneel beside their graves once more. 
With notes of bugle, song and drum, 

With flying flags and sweet May flowers, 
And grateful hearts, again we come 
To deck these soldier graves of ours. 

The school children are present on these occasions and 
they will pass the word on to ensuing generations. One 
generation speaks to another. The patriots of 1776 spoke 
to the men of 1812, and they again to our soldiers in Mex- 
ico whose example cheered the men of 1861, and now the 
survivors of the Civil War bid God-speed to the boys of 
1898. 

Toward the disabled defenders of our country there 
has always been held the warmest feelings of gratitude. 
When Comrade Tanner, who lost both feet at Bull Run, 
was taken to the hospital for another amputation a few 



ADDRESSES OF MAJOR LACEY 261 

years ago, a Grand Army post in Michigan telegraphed 
to him words of good cheer. The dispatch read : 

We understand that they have put you in the hospital and 
are clipping some more coupons off of you. God bless you, old 
fellow ! the less there is of you the better we like you. 

I visited one of these old soldiers' graves the other day 
at Memphis, Tennessee. Fourteen thousand of our dead 
lie there and I wished to view the grave of my old school- 
mate and comrade, George Godfrey, of the Third Iowa 
infantry. He was laid to rest in a group of one thousand 
Iowa soldiers, in one corner of the great cemetery, and 
on each morning sunrise the flag for which he fought is 
hoisted over the grave of the gallant farmer boy who 
gave all he had — his life — for the preservation of the 
Union. 

Standing by his grave after thirty-seven years, I could 
not again realize the time when this gallant young man 
and his fourteen thousand comrades lay down to sleep 
beneath the sod of the Memphis National Cemetery. Not 
far away the Mississippi flowed to the sea, and not a man 
in the state of Tennessee could be found to regret that 
the cause had succeeded for which George Godfrey gave 
his life. 

The railways will be double tracked and improved but 
the true opening for the surplus wealth of this country in 
the future will be upon the deep. 

The sea power of the world passed step by step from 
Tyre and Sidon to Greece and Carthage, to Rome, to Lis- 
bon and Holland, and then to Great Britain. 

Ever onward has it gone and now our country lies mid- 
way between the Orient and the Occident. 

No ancestry gives rank in this country, though the fact 
that our forefathers fought on the right side in any of 
the wars of the past is always a source of satisfaction to 



262 MAJOR JOHN F. LACEY 

every patriotic American, and so we have our Sons and 
Daughters of the Revolution and Sons of Veterans of to- 
day. 

In Great Britain noble ancestry is of vital importance. 
Boyle, the great scientist, was introduced to an audience 
as "the father of chemistry and the brother of the Earl 
of Cork." In this country the Earl of Cork would be in- 
troduced as the brother of Boyle. 

Even Josiah Quincy, who has achieved some distinction 
on his own account, recently had an experience of the lack 
of rank by birth in this country. As he passed through 
the capitol in Boston one day two Irishmen were standing 
by, and one of them said to the other: "Who was that, 
Pat?" The other replied: "I am surprised at you. 
Don't you know him? He is the grandson of that statue 
out there in the Common. ' ' 

An American descendant of a Lincoln or a Grant 
rather labors under the shadow of a great name. The 
Duke of Veragua found himself burdened with the titles 
of Columbus when he visited the great exposition at Chi- 
cago, for the ability of his great ancestors was expected 
to be shown by any one who claimed his honors. 

Comrades and fellow citizens, as another Decoration 
Day passes away I trust that we shall separate with a 
feeling that we are all better for this meeting and for 
these memories. Let us have faith in the future of our 
country, but at the same time neglect no means to make 
that future what God has intended it. To will a thing to 
some purpose we should will the means to accomplish 
that purpose. 

The future concerns us all, and it is our duty to guard 
it well. As the mariner prayed to Neptune, ' ' Thou may- 
est save me if thou wilt, and if thou wilt destroy me ; but 
whether or no I will steer my rudder true." Let us here 



ADDRESSES OF MAJOR LACEY 263 

resolve, and let the resolution be renewed from year to 
year, to stand by our country in every peril ; and to teach 
on all occasions obedience to the laws, and devotion to 
the flag. 



PATRIOTISM l 

On an occasion like this it is well to tell the old, old 
story. Our ancestors recited the Apostles' Creed with 
drawn swords, repeating the same from day to day until 
it became a part of the life of every generation. The 
Ten Commandments, the Lord's Prayer, and the Sermon 
on the Mount cannot be read and reread too often. 

And the immortal principles of the Declaration of In- 
dependence should be kept fresh in the hearts of each 
generation of Americans. 

We divide on many questions and in a year when a 
presidential election occurs, party feelings run high, and 
the din of politics hums ever in our ears. 

Here in this presence, surrounded by Americans of all 
shades of political opinion, I hope easily to find a common 
ground upon which we all may stand, and shall ask you 
to lay aside all feelings but those of united patriotism, 
while we talk together for awhile about our own America 
and what is best for us all. We will lay aside tariffs and 
standards of value for an hour. 

The history of our country is short but full of glory. 
In St. Mark's Cathedral in Venice repose the bones of 
St. Mark himself, removed thence from Egypt a thousand 
years ago. The church looks still fresh and new ; and as 
I stood under its beautiful dome and looked up to the 
three allegorical pictures in mosaic of Europe, Asia, and 
Africa my wife suddenly asked, "Where is America?" 
And the recent origin of our people never seemed so 
clear to me as it did then. 



1 Address by John F. Lacey delivered at Oskaloosa, Iowa, July 4, 1896. 



ADDRESSES OF MAJOR LACEY 265 

When this beautiful and perfect building was erected 
America was on the globe but was not on the map. Our 
splendid continent lay smiling and waiting for the devel- 
opment of the race which, in the years to come, would 
teach the principles of freedom and self-government to 
the world. 

The time in 1492 was propitious. The capture of Con- 
stantinople by the Turks, in 1453, had scattered the phil- 
osophers of the Greco-Roman empire all over Europe. 
The opening of the New World brought with it a new era 
to mankind. It is hard for us to realize the condition of 
the world even in the brightest days of antiquity. 

Augustus Caesar never had a shirt on his back nor a 
window pane in any of his palaces. He never saw an ear 
of corn, a newspaper, nor a potato. Even the Turk who 
completed the downfall of Rome never saw a pipe and 
had not learned to love the American weed which now 
makes the life of the Mohammedan happy on earth. Even 
sixty-seven years ago there were no railways on the 
globe, but now, if these arteries of commerce should 
cease to circulate for a week the misery of the loss would 
be beyond endurance. 

Today the aspiring candidate for a presidential nom- 
ination sits in his distant home, and with a telephone at 
his ear hears the shouts of his applauding friends a thou- 
sand miles away, at a great national convention. 

Time is not measured by years but by events. Months 
and years go by preparing for great events and when 
they come they come like an electric shock. 

Discoveries are made — some by accident and some by 
study. Those discoveries which are sought for are gen- 
erally the most important. An astronomer may discover 
a star which passes into the field of his telescope, but the 
discovery has no such effect as that of the man of science 
who weighs and estimates the perturbations of the plan- 



266 MAJOR JOHN F. LACEY 

ets and points to the region of space where the star 
should be and true to the law it there appears. 

Plato and Plutarch seem to have caught a glimpse of 
our solar system. Philosophers may suspect the exist- 
ence of gas and oil and priests ha.ve taught that these ex- 
halations came from the land of the infernal gods. But 
a single discovery by the artesian auger dispels the il- 
lusion. In Delphi we had an oracle, in Kokomo a glass 
factory. 

Man can analyze the meteorite that falls to the earth 
but with the spectroscope he can truly determine the com- 
position of a distant sun. 

We are now in the dawn of the twentieth century. The 
President we will elect next fall will induct his successor 
into office on March 4, 1901. Events are now projecting 
themselves into another century. Every institution is 
but the shadow of some great man who has passed away, 
and on an occasion like this we gather inspiration from 
the history of the great past. Like a great tree the roots 
of our nation are deep underground. 

Our young commonwealth of Iowa, though one of the 
lastest additions to the national family, is just as old and 
as rooted in her system as one of the original thirteen 
colonies. Each of the states springs from the same orig- 
inal stock. 

We assemble today at our pleasant little city to make 
merry on this national holiday. What a beautiful jingle 
of Indian names! Oskaloosa, Mahaska County, Iowa! 
And what a beautiful city it is in such a beautiful county 
and state ! 

When M. T. Williams, T. Garl Phillips, Judge Wm. H. 
Seevers, A. S. Nichols, Wm. Edmundson, Robert Curry, 
and the other founders of our city selected the quarter 
section at "The Narrows," for that purpose, they spoiled 



ADDRESSES OF MAJOR LACEY 267 

one of the finest places for a farm in all Iowa, but they 
founded a fine city. The names they selected are an 
euphonious combination of Seminole, Sac, and Fox 
words. These names are not only agreeable to the ear 
but have become associated with our lives and history 
until we have become doubly attached to them. 

On this day we think of both the living and the dead. 
Whilst we celebrate the independence of the nation we 
rejoice also at the founding of a city and a common- 
wealth. We miss many, in fact nearly all, of the pioneers 
today. These friends of the past we both mourn and 
honor. 

And the stately ships sail on 
To their haven under the hill ; 

But for the touch of a vanished hand, 
And the sound of a voice that it still ! 

Break, break, break, 

At the foot of thy crags, sea, 
But the tender grace of a day that is dead 

Will never come back to me. 

We can gather more good from the example of those 
who have passed away than from the study of living 
characters, because, as a rule, prejudice is buried with 
the dead and forgiveness blossoms upon their graves. 
And especially do we honor those who die for their coun- 
try, for no seed produces so sure a crop as the blood of 
martyrs. 

But what past age would serve for a complete model 
for the present? We are living now in an era of good 
feeling nationally. The war with all its bitterness has 
passed away and a brass band on the most patriotic oc- 
casions mingles "Dixie" and "My Maryland" with the 
"Star Spangled Banner" and "Yankee Doodle." 

The Fourth of July is our most typical holiday and is 
unique among the celebrations of the world. Canada has 



268 MAJOR JOHN F. LACEY 

her Dominion Day, which is a feeble imitation of our 
Fourth of July. 

A few years ago I was passing through Canada, and on 
looking out of the car window, in the morning of her na- 
tional holiday, I saw the people in crowds in gala attire, 
and asked the car porter what it all meant. Said he, 
"Boss, this is the birthday of one of the queen's chil- 
dren, but I don't know which one." But there is no mis- 
taking our holiday for any other day of festivity. It is 
like nothing else on earth and well it may be, for no other 
people in the world may celebrate a national birthday. 

Fourth of July orators may be called Fourth of Ju- 
liers, but they can hardly overstate the facts. On this 
day I wish you all joy. May the most you want be the 
least you get. It is a school of patriotism and well may 
we celebrate it as such. 

A foolish and imbecile king drove our ancestors into 
revolution at a time when the king had much real power. 
Our forefathers melted down the leaden gilded statue of 
George the Third and fired it in the form of 42,000 bullets 
at the invading red-coats in Connecticut. The hostilities 
growing out of that war with our mother nation have 
long ago ceased, and a friendly rivalry leads us to com- 
pete with the British empire in all the arts of peace. 

Our century is the electrical era. It began with steam 
which was the raw material of power. It is ending with 
electricity which is the soul and essence of power itself. 

From the year 1200 to 1700 the Damascus blade was 
the great pride of man. Steel was the weapon of death 
and the nation was the highest in the scale which carried 
the sharpest sword. 

In 1896 steel rails are the supreme test of our achieve- 
ments, for with them time and space are obliterated and 
travel becomes a. perpetual joy within the reach of the 
poor as well as the rich. 



ADDRESSES OF MAJOR LACEY 269 

The last sublime discovery of the century is the X-ray. 
It is an old adage that any one could see as far into the 
millstone as the man who picks it. Now opaque sub- 
stances are beginning to yield their secrets to the scrutiny 
of human eyes, and the skeleton of a living Corbett has 
been as plainly photographed as that of a man who died 
ten years ago. 

Edison with his phonograph catches the music of a 
complete band and records it upon a cylinder with a point 
no larger than that of a pin and the record yields back 
all the notes of the complicated tune that has just been 
played. 

Cuvier took a single bone and from it reconstructed 
the entire skeleton of an extinct animal. And who knows 
but that the X-rays, gathered from a remote star, Mars 
for example, may not be enlarged and reproduced with a 
living picture of the occupants of the distant planet. 

But let us leave Mars and come back again to Iowa, our 
own loved state — the state of our birth or of our adop- 
tion. Within the memory of living men, now present, 
has this splendid commonwealth grown from a feeble ter- 
ritory to a state of two million souls, with the lowest 
percentage of illiteracy of any people on the globe. Her 
prairies are dotted with four hundred thousand homes, 
and a happy home has been well said to be a suburb of 
heaven. 

The deadly cyclone, which fifty years ago played harm- 
lessly over the prairie, now finds the home of our people 
lying in its path, and death follows in its track. The 
wind that at one time toys with the tresses of a child or 
coaxes open the budding rose rises to the fury of the 
tiger and sweeps with devouring energy over the fairest 
land under the sun. 

But death lurks everywhere, and in Russia the festivi- 
ties of a coronation slew more than all the tornadoes that 



270 MAJOR JOHN F. LACEY 

have ever swept across our state. God has been good 
to Iowa and she has always been generous of her wealth. 
She has never yet passed the hat for contributions be- 
cause of failure of crops, but has freely given to the 
sufferers of other lands, as the grateful people of Kansas 
can attest; and the name of Iowa becomes a household 
word in far off Russia where our shipload of food car- 
ried life to the starving people of that great empire be- 
yond the sea. 

I am inclined, by nature and training, to take a cheer- 
ful view of things. I do not believe our race is degen- 
erating. The first exact date that we have of any fact 
in human history is that Coroebus won the foot-race at 
the Olympic games on a certain day 776 years before the 
birth of Christ. That was 2672 years ago. The events 
of other years are known but this is the first exact date 
recorded in history. During all these years human in- 
terest has continued to center in athletic sports, and our 
countrymen are growing up stronger under the influence 
of a bracing climate, good food, and physical training. 

The Olympic games were revived this year upon their 
old site in classic Greece, and it was with pardonable 
pride that during the summer we read the dispatches 
from Athens which, owing to the difference of over five 
hours in time, seemed to be printed before the events 
actually happened. 

We rejoice that Robert Garrett, of Princeton, threw 
the disc better than any of his competitors, and that E. 
H. Clarke, of Harvard, won the prize with an American 
hop, skip, and jump amid the dust of Attica. 

The public school was the invention of the Greeks and 
manual training was one of their favorite avocations. 
Among the blind the one-eyed are kings. It is pleasant 
to know that our race is in fact improving and that the 
limit of human life is extending. 



ADDRESSES OF MAJOR LACEY 271 

We take a natural pride in our ancestry, for although 
little is known of particular families in America, every- 
thing may be expected of the race that has been pro- 
duced from the best blood of northern Europe and par- 
ticularly from our Anglo-Saxon forefathers. An invig- 
orating and severe climate will bring this race to its best 
estate. 

We have but a few old families and neither have we 
many ruins. At Paestum, in Italy, you will find the tem- 
ples and walls of the old city still in perfect condition. 
The malaria of the adjacent marches has prevented new 
towns from being built, and the ruins have not been used 
as quarries for new cities. 

Out at Salt Lake City you may see 800 feet above you 
on the side of the mountains, the beach line of the shore 
of the ancient fresh water lake called by the geologists 
Lake Bonneville. It has receded and left its mark with 
each receding period. But had it progressed the old 
marks would have been obliterated. 

In the old world the ebbing tide of settlement has left 
the ruins of antiquity on every hand. But in America 
the constantly advancing flow has swept from view all 
the old landmarks, and we see no ruins, for the wreckage 
of the past is used in constructing the buildings of the 
present. 

In this day of financial depression we have different 
views as to what the remedy should be. But we all agree 
that it is the chief business of everybody to restore pros- 
perity again to our native land. It is a high compliment 
to our fertile state to know that during this period of 
depression the values of our Iowa have held their own 
or made a satisfactory advance. But the people of Iowa 
are not satisfied to see our state alone prosper. We 
want our sister states to march with us in the procession. 



272 MAJOR JOHN F. LACEY 

Captain Williams was the inspector-general for Gen- 
eral Benjamin Harrison's brigade, and when he made his 
first report of the monthly inspection of the various reg- 
iments, under the general's command, he said that "The 
One Hundred and Fifteenth Illinois was the best regiment 
in the whole command, and that all the others were just 
as good." And we, too, want Iowa to be the best state 
in the Union, and also hope that every other state will 
be just as good. 

This day should be taken as a day of warning as well 
as a day of hope. I prefer the bright side, but we must 
look at all sides of the picture. Individuals sometimes 
escape punishment, but nations never do. But I would 
not dwell gloomily in a cave of mutterings. There are 
periods when much cannot be expected. 

Sieyes, the French statesman, was asked what he did 
during the Reign of Terror. He said, ' ' I lived. ' ' That 
was enough for a period like that, and was much more 
than many of his friends did. 

But more is expected of us in this day and generation 
than mere existence. We must advance or recede. We 
cannot stand still. We cannot escape history. If the 
sun did not shine there would be no spots upon it. We 
should not devote our time hunting for spots but still we 
must not fail to recognize their existence. 

Our very prosperity confronts us with a new danger. 
Foreign immigration comes to share with us the benefit 
of this land. Much, though not all, of this addition is 
desirable, and the proper methods of eliminating the 
bad from the good is one of the problems of our day. 

We have successfully turned back the Asiatic tide from 
our western shores, but the means of preventing the in- 
flux of the criminal and pauper classes from Europe is a 
more difficult and serious question. We gather encour- 
agement, though, when we see that the Anglo-Saxon 



ADDRESSES OF MAJOR LACEY 273 

seems to thrive in new lands, even though he may have 
been an exported convict, as the colonies in Australia and 
Tasmania bear witness. 

The best method to use in handling this difficult ques- 
tion is one upon which we may not all agree, but of the 
necessity and desirableness of keeping out criminals and 
paupers there will be no disagreement among either our 
native or foreign born citizens. 

We should encourage an American spirit among our 
own people. Let us at least not raise our own foreigners. 
A man born in Cork makes a good American ; a man born 
in Boston should not be an Irishman. An American born 
in Leeds makes a desirable citizen but we cannot say so 
much for an Englishman born in New York. Let Amer- 
icans above all things be Americans. 

We are fortunate in not having a standing army of any 
magnitude. We should not complain of a large pension 
roll, when we consider that it is the result of a system 
which draws the soldier when needed from the ranks of 
civil life and returns him to the avenues of production 
again when the war has ended. 

A large standing army is a source of danger in a re- 
public. As an eminent Scotchman said, ' ' If I had an ape 
by the collar I could make him bite you ; if you had him 
by the collar you could make him bite me." This is true 
of a great standing army but not so as to a citizen sol- 
diery. 

We have always taught respect for and love for our 
country's defenders and even have been ready to over- 
look their faults. It has always been so. Early in the 
present century a soldier who was with Anthony Wayne 
at the storming of Stony Point got into trouble and found 
himself defending an indictment. His case was a clear 
one and his lawyer made the only defense in his power — 
he took occasion to let the jury know that his client 



274 MAJOR JOHN F. LACEY 

fought with Wayne at Stony Point. The jury brought in 
a verdict, "We, the jury, find the defendant not guilty, 
because he stormed Stony Point." The court refused to 
receive the verdict and told the jury that they must find 
the defendant either guilty or not guilty. They returned 
and in a few minutes returned a simple verdict, "Not 
guilty. ' ' But as the jury were about to be discharged the 
foreman said, "I am directed by the jury to say that it is 
lucky for the defendant that he was at Stony Point. ' ' 

It was a perverted or inverted patriotism that led the 
Confederate soldiers to so many battlefields. Lee as- 
sumed to fight for Virginia, Cleburne for Arkansas, and 
Hampton for South Carolina, but the Iowa soldiers un- 
der Grant, Sherman, or Thomas fought for the whole 
United States of America. I am glad to be able to say 
that this wider form of national patriotism has made 
great progress in the states south of Mason and Dixon's 
line. In fact Mason and Dixon's line has substantially 
disappeared. A few malcontents still remain but they 
are noticeable rather by their scarcity than otherwise. 

To the women, to the mothers of America, more is due 
than to any other class. The women of this country en- 
joy a place in the social scale beyond those of any other 
people in the world. The American woman is an un- 
crowned queen wherever she goes and needs no pedigree. 

I will not, as I have already said, talk politics on an 
occasion like this. The American people are dividing as 
they do every four years, into political camps for the 
peaceful battle of the ballots, which is the distinguishing 
feature of our form of government. But I will go this 
far and say that is is the duty of every citizen to take an 
active interest in political affairs. Our public men of all 
parties are much maligned, as they always have been in 
republics, and always will be. 

A public man who retired from long service told me a 



ADDRESSES OF MAJOR LACEY 275 

year or two ago that "All that he had left was his tooth- 
brush and his postoffice address." Not that public men 
are all good by any means. A boy in school defined "a 
demagogue as a vessel that contained rum, gin, whiskey, 
brandy, and many other kinds of liquor." This defini- 
tion may be often true, but the fact remains that we are 
apt to look with too much admiration or too much sever- 
ity upon the men who are called into the glare of public 
life. 

History repeats itself. Julius Cassar was lynched by 
the Roman people, and then deified. 

Thomas B. Reed has defined a statesman as "a pol- 
itician who is dead." The men in public life are apt to 
be neither very much better nor very much worse than 
the people who choose them. 

The general elevation of the people will result in the 
general improvement of the government of the people, 
by the people, and for the people. 

The prosperity and protection of our institutions and 
the moral, spiritual, and physical advancement of our 
people should be the highest aspiration of all our citizens. 

To the young especially is this a day of importance, it 
is a school of patriotism. In the language of the mar- 
iner's prayer, let us conclude: "0 God, I know not 
whether I shall live or die, but I promise that while I live 
I will steer my rudder true." 



INDEPENDENCE DAY x 

In accordance with a custom of over a century, we meet 
today to celebrate an event of importance to the whole 
world. 

It was a very simple and unostentatious act. A paper 
had been drawn up and a body of fifty-six men attached 
their signatures to it. But the placing of those signa- 
tures to that paper was an act big with the fate of man- 
kind. 

We are accustomed to speak of and think of these men 
as venerable fathers of a new republic. They were, in 
fact, most of them, young men, and Franklin was the 
patriarch of the body. Every man who signed that im- 
mortal paper knew that he was signing his death war- 
rant if the movement should fail. A rebellion is a revolu- 
tion that fails. A revolution is a rebellion that succeeds. 

John Hancock headed the list, and he signed his name 
so plainly that King George and all his followers could 
read it. That beautiful and striking signature became a 
model for mankind, and for one hundred and twenty-five 
years men have proudly signed documents of importance 
with the remark, ' ' There is my John Hancock. ' ' 

When Charles Carroll, the richest man in the Con- 
gress, went forward to sign his name, some one said, 
' ' There goes a few millions. ' ' Another one said, ' ' There 
are several Charles Carrolls, and King George will not 
know which one to punish." Thereupon Carroll took up 
the pen again and added after his name, "of Carrollton," 

1 Address by John F. Lacey, July 4, 1901, Toledo, Iowa. 



ADDRESSES OF MAJOR LACEY 277 

leaving no doubt of his identity. lie left no chance of 
doubt as to his danger or his duty. 

Franklin, the dry old wag and philosopher, said, "We 
must all hang together or we will all hang separately." 

When Thomas Jefferson had laid down his pen the next 
man to take it up was Benjamin Harrison, and two of his 
descendants have already presided over the destinies of 
the nation that was that day created. The two Adamses 
— Samuel and John — signed one after the other and on 
the 4th day of July, 1826, John Adams and Thomas Jef- 
ferson celebrated the great event by passing at the same 
time from the immortals of earth to the immortals in the 
higher life beyond. 

Happy is the family that can trace its ancestry to one 
of the fifty-six who took their lives and their pens in their 
hands one hundred and twenty-five years ago today at 
the old Independence Hall of Philadelphia. 

We meet today to hear the old, old story, ever old and 
ever new. Like the Apostles' Creed, the Sermon on the 
Mount, and the Ten Commandments, the Declaration of 
Independence is ever a new and cheering declaration of 
the rights of man. 

We have grown accustomed to much national glorifica- 
tion in this day. The eagle has the right to scream. We 
laud ourselves, our day, our generation, and our country 
until the orators of this occasion run the risk of being 
known as "Fourth of Juliers." 

The chief improvement of the time that has elapsed 
since the Revolution of 1776 is the general dissemination 
of education and of knowledge. The highly educated we 
then had, but the days had not yet gone by when the tav- 
ern signs were the White Hart, the Boar's Head, or the 
Saracen's Head; so used because the common people 
could recognize the pictures though they could not read 
the signs. 



278 MAJOR JOHN F. LACEY 

These are utilitarian days. The days of the super- 
natural have passed, and the natural of today is more 
wonderful than the supernatural of two hundred years 
ago. No longer do our people look for the spooks, the 
witch, and the fairies. 

At Delphi in Greece the natural gas was used to intox- 
icate the Pythian priestess and led her to make portents 
and prophecies. The natural gas at Kokomo is used in 
manufacturing glass. It is a far distance in time from 
Delphi to Kokomo, but one represents the ancient and the 
mysterious, the other the modern and the practical. 

A few hundred years ago the splendid babbling spring 
at Guadaloupe, Mexico, was placed within the portico of 
a church, and made holy to the converted Mexican as it 
had been a sacred place to his pagan ancestry. At Man- 
itou the sacred springs became the fountains of health, 
and hotels, not churches or temples, were built near at 
hand. 

These are, indeed, the days of the practical. The in- 
genuity of man was formerly exhausted in the construc- 
tion of armor and Toledo and Damascus blades. Now 
the inventor burns his midnight incandescent lamp or 
Welsbach burner in the search of new and improved 
methods for the construction of steel railways and steam- 
ships. 

Witches and wizards have disappeared, and we have in 
their places the wizards of science. An Edison or a Gray 
produces marvels that would have made the witch of En- 
dor hide her head in wonder. . . . 

Godfrey and Eichard the Lion Hearted could now go 
to the Holy City on a steamship and railway line, and if 
inclined to take life easy, could find the Holy Sepulchre 
with a personally conducted party from London or Kal- 
amazoo. Not long will it be until the traveler from the 



ADDRESSES OF MAJOR LACEY 279 

Cape of Good Hope to Cairo will stop off for dinner at 
Albert Nyanza and Khartoum. 

While we look back into the past and endeavor to catch 
a glimpse of the future, we lay aside all politics, party or 
otherwise, and celebrate the day as American citizens, 
recognizing one God and one country. Our controversies 
will be of a mild type at this time. 

One of the important things in these celebrations is to 
keep history straight. Each boy and girl who takes part 
in the day's festivities should go home inspired to study 
the history of the events which we celebrate. 

Not long ago an able-bodied and full-grown American 
was seeing the sights of Boston. His cab driver took him 
to the historic monument of Bunker Hill — Bunker Hill 
made sacred by the immortal deeds of Warren, and after- 
wards by the enduring eloquence of Webster. ''There," 
said the cabman, "is where Warren fell." "Is that 
where Warren fell? How high is that monument?" said 
the visitor. 

Another traveler was passing through the capitol at 
Washington with a guide. The guide pointed out to the 
stranger the statues of many celebrities and finally said, 
"There is the statue of General Ethan Allen." A smile 
of incredulity displayed itself on the face of the tourist. 
"You can't fool me," said he, "Ethan Allen was a boss; 
I've seen him on the track myself." 

In looking back over the history of our land we may 
well wonder how much seems due to chance, though under 
the providence of God. The Northmen no doubt discov- 
ered America but did not know it, and they lost it again 
and time rolled by waiting for a more propitious hour. 

The discovery of the Northmen was an accident. Co- 
lumbus deliberately and with great forethought planned 



280 MAJOR JOHN F. LACEY 

his journey to the west. He had determined that he 
would steer due west and allow no circumstances to vary 
his course. The variation of the magnetic needle puzzled 
him, but he held his prow straight to the west, directly 
towards the shores of the present United States of Amer- 
ica. His plans were well matured. He was seeking the 
Indies and due west they must lie. 

But the sailors grew uneasy at the appalling length of 
the voyage and when the flight of little green parrots was 
observed it was noted that they flew to the southwest. 
Columbus reluctantly yielded to the wishes of his crew 
and turned his course to the southwest. 

The soothsayers of old times determined when and 
how a battle should be fought or a campaign carried on 
by observing the flight of birds. Many a bloody conflict 
was fought because the signs were propitious. The Ro- 
man consul carried his coop of chickens and fed them to 
see from their manner of picking at the grain whether 
the time was favorable. The flight of a vulture was an 
omen of great moment. 

But never did the flight of birds direct the course of 
events so greatly and with so much effect as when Co- 
lumbus turned to the southwest and landed in the West 
Indies instead of upon the shores of the United States. 
Spain planted her power in Cuba, Porto Rico, and South 
America, leaving the best of North America for the Eng- 
lish and French adventurers of a later day. The slight- 
est of all circumstances then led to the greatest of all 
events. 

Chance and choice struggled for the mastery at Mar- 
athon. The Greek generals were equally divided as to 
the propriety of bringing the battle, and Miltiades cast 
the deciding vote and the history of mankind was 
changed for all time. 

At Shiloh when the night of the first day's disaster had 



ADDRESSES OF MAJOR LACEY 281 

settled in gloom over the Union army, McPherson spoke 
to Grant as to the ability to get the army across the Ten- 
nessee that night. Grant promptly replied that he would 
resume the battle on the morrow and with Buell's fresh 
forces he expected to win a victory. By the choice of 
Grant the second day's battle was fought at Shiloh and it 
was one of the turning points in our Civil War. 

A crazy and obstinate King George Third drove our 
fathers into revolution. We do not know how much we 
owe to the obstinacy and incompetency of mankind. 
George Third had a statue in America appropriately cast 
in the heaviest and dullest of lead. What an excellent 
material for the head of the testy old tyrant ! The gun- 
ers of 1776 melted that statue down into 42,000 bullets 
and fired them at the red coats of the king's soldiers. 

Of all the seemingly unimportant things connected 
with our early history, the fact that the provinces were 
settled separately and independently has proved of the 
greatest benefit. Each province was the germ of a state, 
and the separate organizations of the several states is 
the real foundation of our national union. ''An indis- 
soluble Union of indestructible states" has been the re- 
sult of the happy providence by which our ancestors were 
separated into distinct provinces. 

In 1893 at Chicago we had that wonderful exhibition 
that gave evidence to the world of the mighty progress 
that our people had made in the four centuries that had 
passed since Columbus sailed on his journey of discovery. 
The two things that interested me the most of all were 
two sheets of paper in the La Rabida Convent. One was 
the original bull — dim with age — by which the Pope 
Alexander VI attempted to divide the new world between 
the Spanish and the Portuguese. The other was the 
statement in Columbus's own handwriting in which he 
gave Isabella a faithful account of the expenditure of the 



282 MAJOR JOHN F. LACEY 

$8,000 which the queen realized upon her jewels and 
loaned to the poor discoverer. The fruit of the $8,000 
investment was the greatest yield that man has ever 
known. The exposition to commemorate the event cost 
more than $30,000,000. When Spain was in the zenith of 
her power under Philip her annual revenues were only 
$20,000,000. The Chicago exposition cost a year and a 
half's income of Spain in the days of the Armada. Queen 
Elizabeth's income was only $4,000,000, or one-fourth 
that of Spain. 

On an occasion of this kind the soldiers and sailors liv- 
ing or dead of our country always take an important 
place. From 1776 the veterans of Valley Forge and 
Yorktown handed down the torch of liberty and patriot- 
ism to those of 1812. The soldiers of the Indian wars 
passed it on to the heroes of the Mexican War and they 
in their turn to our country's defenders in 1861. We had 
begun to wonder if the spirit of the past had died out 
when the war of 1898 gave the opportunity to show that 
the boys of today are worthy sons of their patriotic sires. 

In our past history there was one great blight which 
brought to our people more misery than any other thing 
in our history, and that was the institution of human 
slavery. When Kosciusko made his will he gave all his 
salary as an officer in the American army as a trust fund 
to be used in the purchase and granting of freedom to 
American negro slaves. But Colonel Coddington, an 
English philanthropist, took another view of the subject. 
He devised a plantation in Jamaica with all its slaves in 
trust as a permanent fund, the slaves to be worked by 
suitable overseers and the proceeds of this enforced la- 
bor expended on the spread of Christianity. 

But now this institution so strongly intrenched in so 
many lands has practically disappeared. Brazil has freed 
her slaves and Russia has abandoned her ancient policy 



ADDRESSES OF MAJOR LACEY 283 

of serfdom. No one now thinks of the desirability of any 
return to the old conditions on this question. 

Ours is a composite nation. The Toledo blade was 
famous for its temper and quality. It was made by the 
mixture of a variety of kinds of steel. Every country 
consists of its soil, its climate, its people, and its laws. 

There were 20,000 arms-bearing Greeks in the day of 
Marathon. They were the Greeks of Miltiades. There 
were 20,000 Greeks of the same age in the days of De- 
metrius Phalerias, but they were real Greeks no longer. 
These were the days of Attic decadence. 

The Arch of Constantine is built out of old material in 
part. The old part, carved in the days of Roman glory, 
is very different from the newer portions. All nations 
must guard against decay. When a nation ceases to ad- 
vance it must recede. Nothing ever stands still. 

These are the days of national reconciliation. It is 
hard now to realize the bitterness which prevailed at the 
close of our Civil War. Bishop Wilmer came north to 
solicit aid for his church. He expressed his feelings by 
saying that the South was like Lazarus, and when asked 
to explain he said, ' ' She has been licked by dogs. ' ' Some 
one then asked him why he came north for money, and he 
said, ' ' The hair of the dog would cure the bite. ' ' 

An ex-Confederate was one day in 1866 going along the 
streets of Washington, when he saw a blind Union sol- 
dier, who had lost both arms and legs, sitting by the way- 
side with a placard calling attention to his condition. The 
Johnny Reb dropped a quarter in the box and passed on. 
In a few minutes he came back and put in a dollar. He 
then started on but returned and put in a ten-dollar bill. 
Some one inquired the reason for his actions and he ex- 
plained it by saying, ' ' That this was the first Yankee that 
he had ever seen who was carved just to his taste." 

But we have an entire change of sentiment. It was the 



284 MAJOR JOHN F. LACEY 

fruit of time. The Spanish war gave opportunity to show 
the change, rather than to produce it. The last Congress 
broke up singing the "Doxology," the "Star Spangled 
Banner," "Marching Through Georgia," "Maryland," 
and "Dixie." This was not an idle exhibition of senti- 
ment. It was a spontaneous demonstration of a friendly 
feeling that I hope may always endure. 

Our regular army has a warmer place in our hearts 
than at any time in our country's history. The preju- 
dice against a large regular army has always existed. 
When the fathers, in convention, were framing the con- 
stitution, an amendment was offered limiting the regular 
force to 5,000 men. Washington was not a humorist, but 
he at once offered another amendment requiring that no 
invading army should ever exceed 3,000 men. The one 
proposition was a complete answer to the other. 

The American people today are turning their attention 
once more to the sea. The sea has always been the source 
of power. Actium, Salamis, the Nile, Trafalgar, Manila, 
and Santiago are all names commemorating turning 
points in the world's history. 

When I stood a few years ago near Mary Drake, our 
governor's daughter, and saw her strike the bow of the 
great steel-clad battleship and say, "I christen thee 
Iowa," I wondered if that vessel would ever link the 
name of Iowa with any great event. We did not have 
long to wait until the gallant captain, Robley D. Evans, 
pushed her into the heat of battle at Santiago. 

The time has come, in my judgment, to put the Amer- 
ican flag back once more upon the high seas. We may 
not agree as to the method of doing this. Its discussion 
might bring up disputed questions, but upon one thing 
I think we will all agree, that we want to see the stars and 
stripes take their place in all the seaports of the world. 

We are soon to celebrate another great centennial in 



ADDRESSES OF MAJOR LACEY 285 

our history, the Louisiana Purchase. Jefferson sent 
Monroe to France with instructions to buy the mouth of 
the Mississippi River. Monroe found the First Consul 
a man of few words. Bonaparte offered the whole Louis- 
iana Territory for $15,000,000. Fortunately, there was 
no cable line in operation in those days and Monroe was 
compelled, or rather permitted, to act on his own re- 
sponsibility; and so it happened that the greatest real 
estate deal in history was closed out and the Louisiana 
Territory, with Iowa included, passed to the United 
States of America at about five cents an acre. Louis- 
iana, Arkansas, Missouri, Iowa, Minnesota, Kansas, Ne- 
braska, Oklahoma, South Dakota, North Dakota, and 
Montana have been formed out of this territory. 

When Elizabeth ruled in Great Britain there were only 
3,000,000 people in the world who understood the lan- 
guage of Shakespeare. Today there are 2,225,000 in 
Iowa alone. The future of our state depends upon our 
soil, our climate, our people, and our laws. Iowa, like 
France, is built upon the limestone which insures the 
permanency of her fertility. At Oskaloosa we sank an 
artesian well 2750 feet, and the last two thousand feet 
were in limestone. 

France has had 2,300 crops in 2,300 years, and her agri- 
cultural future still rests on the limestone of prehistoric 
days. 

Education of the children has been the cardinal prin- 
ciple of our faith from the beginning. We have $20,000,- 
000 invested in school-houses, and spend nearly $9,000,000 
a year in the support of our public school system. With 
no city of any magnitude in our borders, we are happily 
free from the political complications that embarrass those 
states which are overshadowed by great cities. We have 
only to be true to ourselves to keep our state in its pres- 
ent happy condition. 



286 MAJOR JOHN F. LACEY 

But whatever state pride we may have, our people have 
always looked upon themselves as Americans first and 
Iowans afterwards. With the broadest national patriot- 
ism let us still stand for the greatness and glory of our 
nation, for the progress, prosperity, and purity of our 
state. 



EXCERPTS x 

At the World's Fair at Chicago, were two time-stained 
and faded manuscripts that I looked upon with more curi- 
osity than anything in that exposition. One was the bull 
of Pope Alexander VI, in which he divided the new world 
between Spain and Portugal ; the other was a small sheet 
of paper in which Columbus made to Isabella an itemized 
account of his expedition which footed the grand total of 
$8,000. 

Why, Pat Murphy and John Smith of Palo Alto County 
each sold cattle last year to amounts sufficient to have 
paid the $7,500 expended on the Mayflower, or the $8,000 
spent by Columbus in the discovery of America. 

And it is only forty years ago that an Indian massacre 
occurred within forty miles of the place in which we are 
holding this pleasant celebration. 

In Mahaska County, where I live, we still have hale 
and hearty in our midst, Mrs. Phillips, who was the teach- 
er of the first school ever taught in that county. 

The Mississippi Valley is the future center of power 
and wealth. This vast basin, drained by a single stream 
with its affluents, is the richest tract of soil upon the 
planet. With coal, iron, lead, zinc, silver, gold, and many 
other minerals, it contains a great range of climate and 
soil and is the granary and cotton producer of the world. 

And, though we may complain of the winds and the 
rain, the heat and the cold, Iowa is the most favored of 
all the states. Look to the north of us and the best part 
of Minnesota lies next to Iowa. On the east the best of 



1 From address delivered at Emmetsburg, Iowa, July 4, 1903. 



288 MAJOR JOHN F. LACEY 

Wisconsin is its southwesterly portion. Illinois is a fa- 
vored state, but its finest land is its northwestern part, 
next to our state. North Missouri is the best part of our 
neighbor on the south. Northeastern Kansas is the most 
fertile part of the Sunflower state. Eastern Nebraska is 
the richest part of that state, and southeastern Dakota is 
the best and most fertile of that commonwealth. 

So in the center of this zone of fertility our situation 
is most gratifying and serene. 

In the old Greek days it was the temple ; in the Roman 
days, the citadel ; in the middle ages the cathedral, which 
formed the architectural center of the town. But in our 
days the school-house in Iowa first attracts the eye of the 
traveler as he looks from the car window. 

We tax ourselves heavily — but three-fifths of it all 
goes to the support of our system of education, and the 
duty of the state to her children is recognized in the high- 
est degree. 

When our national constitution was adopted, there was 
a cancer in the body politic in the form of human slavery. 
The words "slave" and "slavery" were sedulously 
avoided in that instrument by the use of the terms "per- 
sons held to service and labor," and in the clause as to 
representation the words "three-fifths of all other per- 
sons," evaded the use of the obnoxious terms. 

The "importation of such persons as the states may 
think proper," was the phrase by which the slave trade 
was protected up to the year 1808. We had something in 
our organic law that our forefathers blushed to call by 
its right name. 

But a great crime against human rights could not be 
protected by the mere use of sounding phrases. But we 
must make allowances for the state of the public con- 
science in those old days. 



ADDRESSES OF MAJOR LACEY 289 

But now no one defends that "peculiar institution." 
It cost eight billions in money and a million lives to re- 
move that vile blotch from our escutcheon, and no one in 
the South would ever be willing to see slavery return. 



OLD FRIENDS AND NEIGHBORS x 

In 1856, thirty-two years ago, the first Fourth of July 
celebration was held in this neighborhood. I well remem- 
ber to have been present. Thirty-three years is the av- 
erage of human life, and a generation has come and gone 
since then. 

In being called upon to speak to my old friends and 
neighbors of auld lang syne, I feel tempted strongly to 
make an old settler's address. Seeing so many of the 
good old familiar faces of my boyhood days around me 
revives recollections of toil and sorrow, of happiness and 
grief, when in the light of the early morning of life the 
glow of beauty and of hope colored all things. Standing 
now in middle life the sunrise has lost its glorious hues 
and while the sunset has not yet begun to cast its shad- 
ows, I look back with love and regret upon a past genera- 
tion, and with hope and confidence upon a generation that 
is arising. 

Where we now stand is a place full of pleasant mem- 
ories to me. Mahaska County is the loveliest county in 
Iowa and Eveland Grove the most charming spot in Ma- 
haska county. When Adam was alone in the Garden of 
Eden he called the land Paradise. But when Eve came 
and his happiness was full and complete he called it Eve- 
land. Whether this is the same Eveland or not I am not 
able to state but must prove it by some of the old settlers. 
I am not the oldest settler by any means. In the lan- 
guage of the Arkansas traveler, "That black stump was 
thar when I come." 

i Delivered July 4, 1888, at Eveland Grove, Iowa. 



ADDRESSES OF MAJOR LACEY 291 

If in talking about old times and about the old settlers 
today — for I am bound to give them at least a little of 
my time — I want to have a detail made to prove all that 
I may say. 

When I was in the army Mr. McEntee, a quartermaster, 
had a man detailed that he called his affidavit sergeant, 
and whenever any harness, tents, mules, or other prop- 
erty was lost the loss was established by the evidence of 
the " affidavit sergeant," and the quartermaster's ac- 
counts were relieved from further responsibility. 

If I go back into antiquity and tell my tales out of 
school, that the new generation or new-comers may 
doubt, I think that Nick Hoit would be a good man to 
have detailed as the "affidavit sergeant" of the occasion, 
and we can prove it all up by him. 

If any of the statements are unusually hard of proof 
the detail might be strengthened by adding Billy Martin 
and a later recruit, Captain Joe Evans, to the detail. 

But, first, in looking over the faces around me today 
we miss the kind old smile of scores of the men and 
women, good and true, that gathered here thirty-two 
years ago. 

Thomas Lee and John S. Lee have gone to their last 
reward. Uncle Tommy McClure, whose heart was ever 
cheerful under adversity, and who was a veritable Mark 
Tapley in his ability to be happy under difficulties, is 
under the sod. Dr. Boyer, who was a pioneer of pioneers, 
and a man of immense brain power, has gone out from 
among us mourned and regretted by all. Uncle Van De- 
lashmutt, one of the brainiest men of his day and genera- 
tion, and a member of the convention that framed our 
first constitution, has fought the good fight and by reason 
of strength reached the full fourscore that man may 
possess. 

The witty Willis Wilcox ; the dignified, able, and brave 



292 MAJOR JOHN F. LACEY 

Captain Robert Wilson, too, are gone. Samuel Godfrey 
and Benjamin Godfrey, Sam Harris, Moses Reeve, Geo. 
C. Harriott, Sumner Darnell, Hiram Covey are among 
the missing. They have left their good deeds and mem- 
ory behind them. My own father I miss among the num- 
ber, whom you remember as among the first men who 
commenced the struggle for the erection of the noble 
bridge which stands in our sight, and links the destinies 
of Mahaska County together. 

And then a younger race of men I must speak of fur- 
ther on. For in 1861, when the first shot was fired in the 
war, this part of our country found many a plow left in 
the furrow, and many of our old settlers looked upon 
their boys for the last time. 

Richard Campbell, who fell and lies in an unknown 
grave before Atlanta, was a friend of my youth, and one 
whom this community delighted to honor. George God- 
frey, whose life would read like a romance, fills a grave 
at Memphis. I remember when he was keeping bach- 
elor's hall and studying night and day struggling for an 
education. And, again, when in the service he was al- 
ways ready to volunteer to perform extra duty for any 
one who was weaker than he ; how his high sense of honor 
for a long time made him shrink from foraging and liv- 
ing off the enemy as something that was revolting to his 
fine and noble conscience. Shot at Shiloh he staunched 
his wounds, and weak from loss of blood stood in the 
dreadful line of heroes who, in the evening of the sixth 
of April, 1862, held the enemy at bay till night and Buell 
turned the tide to victory. 

We may always profit by the history of such unselfish 
and valiant lives. How that same gallant fellow came 
home on crutches and put on citizen's clothing, lest, while 
walking on his crutches, his wounds should attract at- 
tention and give him a prominence from which his mod- 



ADDRESSES OF MAJOR LACEY 293 

esty shrank. How he returned to the front before his 
wounds were healed and the train upon which he was 
riding was wrecked and he fell into the hands of the en- 
emy. How he escaped and was hunted down with blood- 
hounds and recaptured in the black darkness of a cypress 
swamp. How he was cast again into prison and again 
escaped and on his arrival into the Union lines, fell a vic- 
tim to the hardships that he had gone through. 

I select him as an example of the heroism of the young 
men of those days, and many a counterpart to the story 
may be told to the other young men of this same com- 
munity. 

And when I look upon Jesse McClure, Mehanna Hoit, 
and others who left the community in 1861, and think of 
Lewis and Prank Eveland, of Frank Mistinger, of the 
McClure boys, of Price Jones, of Weekly, and a score 
more of the friends of that early day, I rejoice that the 
boys and girls before me have, through their death, had 
the opportunity to celebrate the Fourth of July of a free 
and united country. 

We meet here today not as Republicans, not as Demo- 
crats, not as Greenbackers, not as Union Labor men or 
Prohibitionists, but as Americans all and forgetting all 
party strife and party feeling send up our rejoicings to 
the God of the Universe, who has seen fit to make so free 
and happy a land, and in his own good time has permitted 
us to enjoy it. 

Whilst we stand for a moment in silence regretting the 
dead who are gone, and stand in silence on the shore of 
the great unknown future, we, nevertheless, will enjoy 
today to its fullest extent the present hour. 

The old days that I have been speaking of were full of 
hardships. The fever and ague were a constant visitor 
then, but have disappeared, destroyed by the beautiful 
and universal blue grass, which has turned the land into a 



294 MAJOR JOHN F. LACEY 

lawn, even where once existed the foulest of the old quag- 
mires. 

In looking back over the past it is hard to realize that 
this is the same country that in 1858 suffered from a total 
failure of crops and when cornbread and sorghum in lim- 
ited quantities was the only food that could be obtained. 

Some of the old settlers may remember the " prairie 
digs" of those days. When I was seventeen years 
old I made my debut in life by attempting to teach school. 
I boarded around, and at the opening of the school these 
"digs" were confined to a single family. But the close 
of the school showed how good a circulating medium the 
teacher was. They were all reduced to the same common 
level. My motto was, "Let no guilty man escape." 

But this is a painful subject ! Will one of the ' ' affidavit 
sergeants", detailed for the occasion, please come for- 
ward? 

In those old days barn raisings and road workings 
were days of festival. The prohibitory law of 1857, with 
special reference to barn raisings, provided that liquor 
might be used for mechanical purposes. At one of these 
barn raisings an old settler won a bet for Dr. Boyer. 
"The frost was on the pumpkin and the fodder was in 
the shock. ' ' A crowd was present at a barn raising and 
Dr. Boyer offered to bet that a certain old settler could 
bite further into a pumpkin than any other man in the 
county. The statute against gaming and options had no 
application, because any one who should look at the open 
countenance of the aforesaid old settler could readily see 
that it was a matter of certainty and not a game of 
chance ; and, sure enough, when the pumpkin — a large 
yellow one — was brought forward, the old settler easily 
went crashing through the rind like a six pound solid 
shot, and, spitting out a mouthful of seeds, Dr. Boyer 
won the bet. 



ADDRESSES OF MAJOR LACEY 295 

While we are letting no guilty man escape, our host, 
Henry Eveland, must not be forgotten. Henry is hale, 
hearty, heroic, and happy, but in the good old days that 
I have been talking about how we came very near losing 
him. It was a hot night in August. The corn was just 
ready to tassel out, with black-green leaves, and the old 
settlers rejoiced that if it was a hot night and bad for man 
and beast it was "at least good for the corn." Henry 
went to bed after a hard day's work in the sweltering 
heat. But, although his conscience did not trouble him, he 
could not sleep. It was too hot. He tried that old resort 
of a melting man: divested himself of all his clothing, 
like a second Adam, and went to sleep in the barn. The 
experiment was successful, but no sooner had he got to 
sleep than Joe Morris waked him up with the announce- 
ment that the cornfield was full of cattle. 

Henry was always a careless man about his toilet and 
on this occasion he forgot it altogether and with the 
speed of a racer at the Olympic games he was in the field 
after the cattle, racing and chasing the festive steers 
from side to side, until, finally, they were got out and the 
fence put up. But now comes the saddest part of this 
tale of woe of old times. Corn leaves cut like saws and 
knife blades and this unfortunate old settler made the 
discovery that he was literally cut to pieces. He was 
bandaged in fine linen and linseed oil and laid away to 
dry, and with proper nursing fully recovered. At this 
period of time it is safe to speak to him about it, but I 
should not have taken so great a risk in 1860. Shall I 
again call on the "affidavit sergeant"? 

You must pardon me for imparting so much of local 
flavor to my address today. Surrounded by these old 
friends I could not help it. For thirty-two years my 
heart has turned to this spot. There are no songs like 
the old songs ; no friends like the old friends. And there 



296 MAJOR JOHN F. LACEY 

is to Hie an air of sadness over it all. Returning to these 
old associations, those that are gone are more missed by 
me than by you who have constantly remained here. New 
associations arise with you in regard to the old places. 
With me these old places are constantly associated with 
the old faces. "We miss Professor Baker, who, I believe, 
was the first person who ever addressed a Fourth of July 
audience on these grounds. 

I miss the sound of many a kind voice of the old time. 
I miss the touch of many a friendly hand. As Tennyson 
expressed it, as he stood sadly by the sea thinking of the 
days that were gone : 

And the stately ships go on 

To their haven under the hill, 
But for the touch of a vanished hand, 

And the sound of a voice that is still. 

Break, break, break, 

At the foot of thy crags, sea ! 
But the tender grace of a day that is dead 

Will never come back to me. 

The friends of those early days I see around me. Many 
are gone to newer homes in Colorado, Kansas, Nebraska, 
Dakota, or the golden shores of California. But many 
still remain and it is a delight to me to see them together 
once more. 

Every nation has its holidays, but few of them have 
such a written history as to enable them to celebrate 
their birthday. This we are permitted to do. 

On the 4th of July, 1776, only a little over a hundred 
years ago, this nation first became a free and independent 
government. By the accident of the colony system, sep- 
arate and independent states became united under a gen- 
eral government, with complete local self-government re- 
tained in the separate states. This feature in our organ- 



ADDRESSES OF MAJOR LACEY 297 

ization made it possible for any number of separate states 
to become bonded together. A state whose industry is 
fishing may be united with one whose sole industry is 
stock-raising or mining, and the local affairs of each state 
are managed as it may seem best under the general 
provision of the constitution guaranteeing to each a re- 
publican form of government. The elasticity of this sys- 
tem has been shown and its endurance tested under the 
most trying circumstances. And today Scotland, Wales, 
and Ireland are asking and will obtain similar rights in 
the disposition of their local affairs. 

The power of association of this country as to every 
branch of the Caucasian race has proved a wonder to the 
world. The other day I saw an Irish witness upon the 
stand. His brogue was as rich as if he had not been 
from Talu an hour, and you could tell that he was an 
Irishman as well as if he had a map of Ireland on his 
face. 

The next witness was his son, who was born in Amer- 
ica of an Irish mother, and raised in Iowa. He looked 
like an American and spoke like an American, and if he 
had not had a good old Irish name he might have claimed 
that his ancestors came over in the Mayflower; and no 
one would have questioned the truth of the assertion. 

The line, though, must be drawn at the dominant race. 
The German, the Englishman, the Scotchman, the 
Frenchman are lost in the second generation, and the 
peculiar, bright, aggressive, active, native American 
evolved from the mixture. 

To any one who goes abroad to the old world the first 
thing he notices on landing again in this country is the 
bright and educated look of the people. The bright and 
intelligent looking people that you meet in crowds upon 
the trains are a source of constant surprise. They are 
all first class passengers, all well dressed, all apparently 



298 MAJOR JOHN F. LACEY 

educated and intelligent, and there is an air of familiar 
independence about them that is in marked contrast with 
the crowds you will see upon the trains in any other 
country. 

And to the ladies of America it may be well said that 
they do not fully realize and understand the position that 
they enjoy. Every country's greatness and intelligence 
must ultimately be measured by the standard of the 
mothers of the land. No fountain rises above its source. 
And in no land that the sun shines upon is woman placed 
upon the exalted pedestal which she occupies in America. 

A few years ago I was standing in the garrison city of 
Innsbruck, in the Tyrolese Alps. The city was being rap- 
idly increased by its erection of immense new buildings. 
On every hand from the broad and fertile plains rose the 
beautiful Tyrolese Alps, one of the grandest panoramas 
on earth. In the fields around the city the farms were 
being tilled by the women, and in the city I saw women 
with blue calico dresses, and hods of brick and mortar on 
their shoulders, carrying the brick and mortar up long 
flights of steps to the masons on the buildings, whilst in 
the streets nearby the soldiers sat or stood smoking or 
drinking their beer and taking the world easy, while the 
women did the work. This is one of the curses of a great 
standing army — which we happily escape. 

All wealth must be produced by labor. It may be gath- 
ered together in other methods, but it must be created by 
labor alone, and when half a million of men are taken 
out of the field of producers and become idle consumers 
at the expense of the public, we must expect in times of 
peace the same results that we saw in 1864 in America, 
when the women took up the farming tools and did the 
land labor that the men ordinarily undertook. 

God grant that the day may be far distant when woman 
shall come down from the place where she is enthroned 



ADDRESSES OF MAJOR LACEY 299 

by all true Americans, to become a beast of burden. I 
spoke of Austria as an example, not as an exception. In 
Belgium women and dogs may be seen in all the streets 
harnessed up and pulling carts loaded with milk and 
vegetables. The dog guards the milk wagon while his 
mistress drops her harness and goes in to deliver the milk 
to a customer. 

Occasionally a dog fight between two rival milk teams 
mars the Arcadian beauty and simplicity of the scene, 
but not often, for the women and dogs usually dwell to- 
gether in amity. No wonder the American women are 
the handsomest in the world. They are the best treated. 

It was some years after national independence was 
achieved before the importance of the event was fully ap- 
preciated in Europe. It is true that our example led to 
the overthrow of monarchy in France, or, rather, it led 
to the explosion of the mine that had long been planted 
under the French throne. But, in its more important 
bearing, this country — as the asylum for the high-spirit- 
ed, oppressed people of all nations — was not so fully 
understood till early in the present century. But the 
tide set in strong and resistless until thousands have 
landed at Castle Garden in a single day. In 1841, when 
Sir Charles Lyell paid a visit to this country he made a 
careful examination and found that the line of settlement 
was traveling west at the rate of seventeen miles a year. 
These were stage-coach days and it was no doubt well 
for the country that the progress was so slow, so that the 
nation by steady growth might become large enough to 
assimilate the mighty host that was to follow. 

In those days the settler passed into the wilderness 
carrying neither scrip nor purse, relying on his own 
strong hands for his support and upon his trusty rifle 
for his defense. For fifty years the struggle with nature 



300 MAJOR JOHN F. LACEY 

progressed. The savage tribes receded gradually and the 
prairie schooner navigated the western wilds. Now rail- 
ways are built fearlessly into uninhabited lands in the 
full faith that the people will follow. 



PILGRIM DAY l 

You celebrate tonight one of the great events of his- 
tory. Great hardships and dangers attended the voyage 
and final landing of the Pilgrims. The defenders of 
Port Arthur have attracted the attention and received 
the homage of the world, but the percentage of death 
among the crew and colonists of the Mayflower was 
larger than that of the great siege which has just closed. 
More than half of these early voyagers were in their 
graves before the historic ship started on the return 
voyage. 

Creasy wrote of the Fifteen Decisive Battles of the 
World. A splendid companion book would be one upon 
the " Decisive Landings of the World," beginning with 
Noah at Mt. Ararat and including those of Caesar and 
William the Conqueror in Britain, iEneas in Italy, Co- 
lumbus at San Salvador, John Smith at Jamestown, the 
Mayflower at Plymouth Rock, and the Japanese in Korea. 

I understand that the Boston people are now divided 
into two classes, the Mayflowers and the Cephalonians. 
The advantages that our Irish friends, who came over in 
the Cunarder Cephalonia, have over the pioneers of the 
Mayflower are that they can land in less than ten days 
from the old sod, and their safe arrival will be printed 
next morning in the Tipperary and Cork papers. 

The gentlemen who invited me to dine with you and 
speak on this occasion inquired of me what connection I 
had, if any, with the Pilgrim fathers. I was compelled 
to make the humiliating admission that by ancestry I had 

1 Address at Washington, D. C, by John F. Lacey. 



302 MAJOR JOHN F. LACEY 

no claim whatever upon such distinction, but that my 
little granddaughter, Doris Brewster, who is now living 
under the Arctic circle at Nome, Alaska, is a descendant 
on her father's side from the man who was described as 
the "soul of the Pilgrim Company," Elder William 
Brewster, and bears that historic name. I shall have to 
claim connection with the Mayflower by ascent, instead 
of descent, as you do. But, lest my little granddaughter 
should grow vain over such distinction, I have taken time 
to compute the degree of relationship that attaches 
through ten generations from those pioneers. By de- 
scent, on one side only, the Pilgrim blood in one of the 
present generation is only one ten hundred and twenty- 
fourth part. This would seem to be a very small, vulgar 
fraction of Pilgrim stock, but we must recognize that a 
very little leaven leaveneth the whole lump, and there has 
never been a more controlling strain of blood on earth 
than that which these forefathers transported to the 
rocky shores of New England. 

It is estimated that there are something over a million 
descendants of the Mayflower immigrants, but they have 
dominated for a hundred years in all parts of the Union. 

The builders of nations may be uncultured and rough 
but they must be strong. They must be strong if they 
would lead the strong. They may direct but, after all, 
the winds and the currents move the ship. 

The New Englander, like the Scotchman, seems to have 
been able to maintain his dominating virility in every 
climate. The Scotchman at Hudson Bay and in Pana- 
ma is the same controlling force, not enervated by cli- 
mate, or led astray by his environments. 

It is so with the Pilgrim stock. Colonel Ingersoll said 
that if you should send a colony of Yankee school teach- 
ers to San Domingo, the next generation would be seen 
with a fighting cock under each arm, riding bare-backed 



ADDRESSES OF MAJOR LACEY 303 

horses to the cock-pit on Sunday afternoon. This was a 
droll conception of the brilliant iconoclast, but it is ex- 
actly the reverse of the fact. The New England type 
will keep in every climate and dominate wherever it is 
found. 

On the Pacific Coast from Seattle to Bering Strait the 
white men are divided into two classes by the Indians 
and referred to as "King George's men" and "Boston 
men. ' ' 

Our English kinsfolk are complaining of our monopoly 
of the title American, and it is suggested that we should 
not assume the name which would indicate that we con- 
trol the two Americas, North and South, but that we 
should modestly assume the name of Usonians. Should 
we make a change it would be to accept the distinction of 
being called Yankees. This name adheres to us every- 
where when we go abroad, and even the Georgian when 
he stops at a Swiss hotel ceases to be shocked when he 
finds himself referred to as a Yankee. 

The founders of states and nations are always objects 
of interest to posterity, and are usually little noticed in 
the beginning when they are plowing and planting the 
seeds of future greatness. The origin of the nations of 
the Old World is veiled in the mists of antiquity. We see 
the streams as they flow through the plains, but the 
sources are lost to sight in the clouds which surround the 
mountain top. The Greeks and Romans ascribe to their 
old settlers the intimate friendship of the gods or direct 
descent from supernatural ancestors. When we read of 
Hercules and Romulus we feel that we are in the domain 
of myth and poetry rather than history. But the people 
who settled the United States trace their ancestry back 
to the beginning. It is a plain, practical beginning, full 
of harships and sorrows. 

The pioneers were chosen by the laws of natural selec- 



304 MAJOR JOHN F. LACEY 

tion. It was not the weakling or the dissolute who faced 
the dangers of an unknown world for conscience sake. 
The men who chose this course of life needed no pedigree. 
As Marshal Lannes said, they were "ancestors, not de- 
scendants." 

And the nobility of the Old World, in seeking new 
blood to restore decaying or decayed houses, may look 
with the same degree of care upon the bank account or 
rent roll of an American girl, but they ask her in mar- 
riage with no requirements as to ancestry. 

It was fortunate for the settlement of this republic that 
the splendid domain of the great Northwest was so far 
in the interior, so that the barren land of New England 
could be occupied before the population had seen the fer- 
tile prairies. 

A young Iowa farmer made his first visit to Massachu- 
setts a few years ago and wrote back to his father that 
the soil was so poor that they had to manure it to make 
brick. This you will no doubt recognize as libelous, or at 
least an exaggeration, but the fact remains that the New 
England people turned to the sea, to trade and manu- 
facture, for their future greatness rather than to the soil. 

Out west we are prone to look upon the New Englander 
as too much given to science and theory. We commonly 
imagine the young lady in the schools writing essays on 
"The philogeny of the hymenoptera," or some equally 
abstruse question. In fact, we are inclined to yield to 
them even greater intellectual powers than they claim. 

We recognize the philippics of Demosthenes as hav- 
ing been equaled by the Wendell Phillipics of forty-five 
years ago. 

The founding of the great schools of New England 
were the great factors in giving to that section its dom- 
inant influence in our history. 

The man who is educated in New England becomes a 



ADDRESSES OF MAJOR LACEY 305 

missionary of the thought of those with whom he has so 
intimately associated in early life. 

The career of President Roosevelt is an illustration of 
the effect of such training as Harvard affords. Though 
of Dutch ancestry, our President had the environment of 
New England at the formative period of his life. We 
can say of him in the language of the breezy West, ''He 
is as straight as a gun-barrel and clean as a hound's 
tooth." 

The Pilgrims landed in 1620 and only seventeen years 
thereafter, in 1637, Harvard College was founded. They 
did not wait. They recognized at once the value of seats 
of learning. These ancestors of yours builded better 
than they knew. 

In the early days there were many conflicting claims to 
the great West. Virginia asserted title to the Northwest 
Territory and Massachusetts and Connecticut laid claim 
to everything west of them to the setting sun. Most of 
Michigan was in Massachusetts, and the present site of 
Chicago was in Connecticut. 

The subsequent compromises in regard to the public 
domain relieved the future Chicago and Connecticut of 
much trouble. I am not sure whether Chicago would 
have been in Connecticut or Connecticut in Chicago. With 
characteristic thrift Connecticut saved out of her claims 
the Western Reserve in Ohio, so that William McKinley 
and William B. Allison were born on what has been Con- 
necticut soil. 

The anti-slavery crusade in New England changed the 
history of this nation. 

It is hard to realize that only forty-six years ago old 
John Brown was captured at Harper's Ferry by the 
United States forces under Captain Robert E. Lee and by 
Virginia troops under Stonewall Jackson. Death and im- 
mortality had an appointment of martyrdom for John 



306 MAJOR JOHN F. LACEY 

Brown at Harper's Ferry — he must keep his engage- 
ment. It was destiny, and his soul is marching on. 

Brown captured from Lewis Washington the sword 
which Frederick the Great had presented to George 
Washington, and this sword he surrendered to Lee. Only 
seven years later came the great event of Appomattox. 
How fast the world moved in those eventful years ! When 
Governor Henry A. Wise returned to his home, after the 
surrender in 1865, he found his house converted into a 
freedman's school; John Brown's picture hung on the 
parlor wall, and John Brown's daughter was a teacher 
in the school. 

The influence of New England may be found in all 
parts of the United States, and particularly in the great 
West. 

The town meeting has not in its original form been 
carried to the new states except in the management of the 
public schools. But her general plan of local self-gov- 
ernment has become a part of the daily life of all of our 
people. 

These meetings in which you commemorate the toil and 
sacrifices of your forefathers are schools of patriotism. 
It is important that the children of these great ancestors 
should suffer no decadence. 

There were 20,000 Greeks at Athens bearing arms in 
the days of Pericles and Athens was powerful. There 
were still 20,000 Greeks of age to bear arms in the days 
of Demetrius Phalereus. But they were the degenerate 
sons of worthy sires. The maintenance of the high stand- 
ing of the past is possible but it cannot be done without 
effort. 



OLD SETTLERS' MEETING 1 

The founders of states and empires have always been 
objects of interest. Ordinarily the origin of a nation or 
state is lost in the myths of fable. 

The Greeks and the Romans describe their old settlers 
as the intimate friends of the gods ; and whether we read 
of an .ZEneas, a Dido, a Romulus, or a Remus, we feel 
sure that we are in a domain of poetry rather than of his- 
tory. 

Jasper County has set the example in Iowa of gather- 
ing together in loving reunion, remnants of the old set- 
tlers, that they may mingle with the new generations fol- 
lowing in their footsteps. Jasper is so large a county 
that more than one of these reunions has been called with- 
in her borders during the present year. 

The good cheer and bountiful provisions on this camp- 
ground only attest how near the heart is to the stomach. 
Such a matter as this is essentially social in its character, 
and is always absolutely free from political significance. 

A few years ago I was invited to speak at a political 
barbecue in the neighborhood where I had spent many 
years upon my father's farm. The old settlers whom I 
had known for nearly forty years were all there, and they 
embraced every shade of political opinion. I never 
found it more difficult to talk party politics than I did 
facing that kind of an audience. But for the fact that I 
had been advertised to make a political speech, I would 
have devoted my entire discourse to topics which would 
please the old settlers, regardless of their political faith. 

1 Address at Prairie City, Iowa, August 28, 1895. 



308 MAJOR JOHN F. LACEY 

Here today we meet without discussing political or re- 
ligious creed, and commemorate the generation that 
founded the state of Iowa. 

In the old world the first inhabitants of mountain re- 
gions believed in many gods ; each cloud, as it gathered 
upon a mountain peak, and spoke in thunder to the dis- 
tant clouds, was peopled by mountaineers in their my- 
thology with a separate god. Each valley, lake, and cavern 
had its ruling spirit. But on the plains of Asia the arch- 
ing sky and the level earth brought up the thought of 
unity, and the one God of revelation there found ready 
believers. 

By the Indian, who first inhabited the plains of Amer- 
ica, the great spirit was looked upon as controlling every- 
thing. That spirit of unity in all nations prevails among 
the Indians of the plains today. 

The first settlers of this county are no longer numer- 
ous, neither are they all dead. Many persons present 
were born before this city was founded. Measuring time 
by events, rather than by years, it is wonderful, indeed, 
what these old settlers have seen. The old man born in 
1809 is only eighty-six years of age. He was born the 
same year with Lincoln, whose martyrdom occurred 
thirty years ago ; and with Gladstone, who is still a pow- 
er in English affairs. The lives of these men stretch 
back to the days when Napoleon was in all his glory. 

The younger generation will recollect when Italy was a 
chaos of little principalities, and Germany an aggrega- 
tion of little kingdoms. He will recollect when Mason 
and Dixon's line divided this country into rival sections, 
a line no longer referred to, except in history. 

The records of the first settlers of other lands have 
been made centuries after the events which they purport 
to record. But the settlers of this region are involved in 
none of the myths of fable. The European settlers sailed 



ADDRESSES OF MAJOR LACEY 309 

amid the clouds of tradition and obscurity. The prairie 
schooner of the great West is still remembered as a re- 
cent institution. How new these old settlers are. 

Did you ever think what God did to prepare this land 
for the old settlers? Its geological history is written in 
the thousands of feet of limestone of the state, the coal, 
the drift, and the soil. Air, fire, water, glaciers, wind, 
hail, sleet, and ages of time gradually prepared the sur- 
face of the Northwest to be the garden that it now is. 

When I see one of the gigantic boulders from Hudson's 
Bay lying imbedded in the soil, where the ice laid it so 
many ages ago, I always feel like taking off my hat, for 
he is the real old settler. 

The great garden called Iowa lies almost like a square 
block, with ninety-nine counties like a checkerboard upon 
its surface. It slopes from 1,500 feet above the sea in 
the northwest to 600 feet at the southeast corner, with 
streams flowing down this gentle slope from west to east. 

In a moist climate and fertile soil are found her chief 
wealth. The coal, gypsum, lead, and clay furnish great 
resources of ordinary wealth ; and in your own county the 
Colfax Springs water offers a sanitarium to all. 

Every country looks back to its first settlers. The In- 
dian who first occupied this land was but a wanderer. He 
lived upon the soil but did not occupy it; of necessity his 
occupation was but temporary. But the present occu- 
pants of Iowa have fixed themselves in the soil ; they have 
come to stay. Ours is the newest race on earth. That 
country is a new country, indeed, where the old settler 
lives to celebrate his own arrival. We may search in 
vain for the origin of the Aryan race, but we know where 
the settlers of Iowa came from. All nations mingled to 
create the American. 

The Celt, the Greek, the Teuton all combine. With all 
the Anglo-Saxon love of liberty and aptitude of self-gov- 



310 MAJOR JOHN F. LACEY 

ernment, the American race is no longer merely Anglo- 
Saxon. European noblemen have learned this and are 
seeking wives from the new race, without asking for ped- 
igree. There is nothing fairer on earth than a child 
fresh from the hand of God, and the new race has the 
merit of being the last product of the world's evolution. 

As late as 1844 Mr. Lyell, the great geologist, estimated 
the rate of progress of the American people to the west 
at seventeen miles a year. But the telegraph and the 
railway came in due time, and the American race was 
especially adapted to the era of steam and electricity. 
The American people, made from them all, has sprung 
suddenly into the first rank among the races of the world. 

I am no pessimist, and I will not preach the gospel of 
despair at an old settlers' meeting; even if I were in the 
very slough of despond, I would not talk it here, for I do 
not wish these old men to die regretting that they helped 
to found Iowa. 

Planted, as the original colonies were, upon the coast, 
new material steadily crossed the sea, and the result was 
a new type among the people of the world. In building 
up the West, the strongest young lives in the East turned 
their faces to the setting sun. Thus it is that the truest 
American type is found in the boundless West. 

The greatest event in its results, occurring in the year 
1803, was the purchase of Louisiana, by Monroe, acting 
for the administration of Mr. Jefferson. Monroe built 
better than he knew. He was sent to buy New Orleans, 
and bought the whole Louisiana Purchase instead, includ- 
ing the great state of Iowa, which was but a small part of 
Mr. Monroe's acquisition. His memory was commem- 
orated in your own county at one time, by the location of 
the state capital at Monroe, and it was at Monroe, I am 
told, that the first cabin was built in Jasper county. It 



ADDRESSES OF MAJOR LACEY 311 

was a brave race that settled this country, and men de- 
serve to live, who are not afraid to die. 

The builders of nations may be rough, but they must be 
strong. The very faults of the old settlers may be class- 
ed among their virtues. Men complain now about what 
these old men would have called trifles. They worked 
and cared for themselves and would have scorned to ask 
the government to take care of them. Put those men on 
an island and they would soon organize a free govern- 
ment, and put it in running order. They had an abiding 
faith in their ability to take care of themselves and to get 
the best of everything. 

In 1861, when a thousand of the first settlers of Kansas 
met to organize a regiment, to take part in the war for 
the Union, they first organized like a town meeting, with 
a chairman and secretary. They had not yet selected a 
colonel and officers of the line. The question arose as to 
whether the regiment should go out as cavalry or in- 
fantry, and after considerable discussion, as to the re- 
spective merits of the two arms of the service, one old 
settler arose and said, "Mr. Chairman, I move we go out 
as infantry and come back as cavalry." The motion pre- 
vailed, and, sure enough, when the regiment was mustered 
out they were all well mounted. 

The men of Iowa did not build this state alone. In no 
state have the women taken a more conspicuous part. 
They were ready to bear their part of the hardships of 
the first settlers, and upon them fell the sorrows and bur- 
dens of the Civil War. And to them, more than to the 
men of Iowa, is due the fact that Iowa stands first among 
the states in freedom from illiteracy. 

Her climate renders her future as promising as her 
past has been astonishing. With variety and variable- 
ness sufficient to create a rugged race, the feeble and 



312 MAJOR JOHN F. LACEY 

broken in health have never sought her prairies as the 
natural home for the weak; and her people have grown 
from a selection among the strongest in the land. But 
whatever pride of state we may have, whatever pride of 
state we do have, the people of Iowa always have subor- 
dinated their love of their own state to that of the union 
of all the states. 

When Shakespeare wrote his immortal plays there 
were not so many English speaking people in all the 
world as now live in Iowa and Illinois Today 120,000,- 
000 tongues are speaking the language of our forefathers. 

Jasper County was settled in 1843 ; Prairie City, first 
named Elliot, was settled in 1856. The enabling act to 
admit the state into the Union, was passed in 1845, only 
fifty years ago. Already over two million people are liv- 
ing within her borders. No state takes better care of her 
deaf, dumb, blind, helpless, and insane. It is not mere 
wealth or invention that benefits a people. It is the use 
to which inventions are applied. 

The Chinese had gunpowder and printing before the 
Christian era, and the Tartars guided their carts and 
wagons through the plains of Asia with the aid of a mag- 
netic needle floating in a vessel of water. It is the man- 
ner in which inventions have been utilized which consti- 
tutes the chief glory of the present generation. 



THE LOUISIANA PURCHASE l 

I wish to avail myself of the generous privileges ac- 
corded in general debate to discuss a subject that in 1903 
will attract universal interest. We have been passing 
through a series of centennial years, beginning with that 
of 1876, when we celebrated the nation's independence. 

The most important event in its consequences after in- 
dependence year was that which occurred in 1803, when 
the territory of Louisiana was ceded to our republic. We 
are about to celebrate the great epoch in a most substan- 
tial way by an unrivaled exhibition upon the banks of the 
father of waters, at the city of St. Louis. 

There is no part of our land so rich in its future pos- 
sibilities as that region to which I invite your attention. 

For many years I have carefully studied the resources 
of our public domain. 

In a long journey through the mountains of Arizona 
and New Mexico, a few years ago, I had a college grad- 
uate cowboy for a driver. He asked me if I had seen 
much of the West, and I told him I knew it from Alpha 
to Omega. 

He quietly suggested that he knew it better still ; that 
he "knew all about it from Alfalfa to Omaha." 

The subject of the purchase of 1803 covered a wide 
range of time, latitude, and longitude. We are interest- 
ed in the Louisiana Purchase because of its influence up- 
on our history and its great possibilities in the future. 

Let us go back a few cycles, and we will, in our mind's 

1 Speech of Hon. John F. Lacey, of Iowa, in the House of Representa- 
tives, Tuesday, December 16, 1902. 



314 MAJOR JOHN F. LACEY 

eye, see the land piled mountain high with the earth's 
great glacial cap and behold the dynamic forces grinding 
up the drift and preparing it for the soil that was yet to 
come. 

Later on — 

"We hear the tread of pioneers 

Of Nations yet to be, 
The first low wash of waves where soon 
Will roll a human sea. 

THE FLIGHT OF BIRDS 

God has guided the settlement of this country. When 
Columbus started on his venturesome voyage he firmly 
resolved to sail due west and under no circumstances to 
change his direction, but the flight of flocks of parrots to 
the southwest led his seamen to appeal to the admiral to 
follow the birds. He finally yielded, and landed in the 
West Indies instead of upon the coast of Georgia or 
North Carolina, thus reserving the United States for 
English occupation. In ancient times many a battle was 
fought upon the favorable omens of the flight of birds. 

The Roman consuls carried their chicken coops with 
their troops, and before fighting a battle fed the birds 
and consulted the soothsayers as to the omens. 

The Aztecs founded the City of Mexico where a vulture 
was seen standing on a cactus with a serpent in its talons. 

But never were such great results dependent upon so 
slight a cause as when Columbus by changing his course 
caused the settlement of the West Indies, Mexico, and 
South America by the Spanish people instead of the ter- 
ritory now occupied by the original thirteen colonies of 
the United States. Had he not changed his course he 
would no doubt have landed upon the coast of Georgia in- 
stead of San Salvador. 



ADDRESSES OF MAJOR LACEY 315 

KELIGIOUS FREEDOM 

The Spanish exploration turned aside, and a different 
people, with different language and aspirations, laid the 
foundation of our present great republic. The first set- 
tlers came in search of religious freedom — the Puritans 
to New England, the Quakers to Pennsylvania, Catholics 
to Maryland, Huguenots to South Carolina. These set- 
tlements in different provinces seemed a simple thing at 
the time, but the colonists builded better than they knew, 
for a land broad and deep, the deep foundation of the 
sovereign states of the Union. The first setters of every 
land have excited the interest and admiration of their 
descendants. The nations of the Old World have sought 
their ancestors among the gods. In our own brief history 
we are able to trace the origin and growth of our national 
life from its beginning. 

FRENCH EXPLORATION AND SETTLEMENT 

The mighty Mississippi flows over the remains of De 
Soto, and serves at once as his grave and his monument. 
The French pioneers of Canada heard of the great stream 
near its sources and believed that it flowed into the Gulf 
of California. La Salle, Marquette, Joliet, Hennepin, 
and De Tonty have written their names upon the map of 
the future center of the world's civilization. Following 
the river in its majestic course to the Gulf, there the 
French missionary voyagers raised the cross of Jesus 
and the flag of France, and took possession in the name 
of their king and called the land Louisiana. 

THE TREATY OF PURCHASE NAPOLEON, JEFFERSON, MON- 
ROE, LTVENGSTON 

In discussing this subject we can not be otherwise than 
forcibly impressed with the progress of the world. Only 



316 MAJOR JOHN F. LACEY 

one hundred years ago on the 30th of next April the 
treaty ceding this great territory was signed, and Presi- 
dent Jefferson was soon after assailed for having not on- 
ly violated the Constitution by extending his country's 
boundaries, but he was especially criticized for throwing 
away the enormous sum of $15,000,000 in the purchase 
of land lying so remote from civilization and of so little 
intrinsic value. But Providence raises statesmen from 
time to time who see beyond the narrow horizon of their 
own time, and in republics men are called to power who 
are willing to look further than the next election. 

The most stupendous transaction in the march of time 
was the action of Pope Alexander VI, when he took the 
map of the world and with a pen and ruler divided the 
New World between Portugal and Spain. This was a 
very simple and convenient adjustment of a great con- 
troversy, but it was not possible for it to remain so set- 
tled, and so in due time other nations took part in the 
colonization of our hemispheres. And so it happened 
that whilst our Atlantic Coast was occupied by Great 
Britain, the most Christian king of France held dominion 
over the great prairies, forests, and mountains of the 
West. 

In 1682 the flag of France was raised, but it was not 
until 1699 that the first settlement was made near the 
Gulf. The great possibilities of this country fascinated 
the French people, and John Law exploited its future 
with his Mississippi scheme, involving all France in 
bankruptcy and financial ruin, until they were very will-- 
ing indeed to cede the land to Spain, in 1762. But in the 
treaty of San Ildefonso, October 1, 1800, Spain again 
transferred it back to France; but the terms of the 
treaty were kept so secret that it was commonly believed 
that Florida had been included in the transfer, though 
the flag of Spain still floated over the various posts. 



ADDRESSES OF MAJOR LACEY 317 

When Bonaparte became the First Consul and dicta- 
tor of France, war with Great Britain had become un- 
avoidable. Our minister at Paris, Mr. R. R. Livingston, 
opened up negotiations to secure the navigation of the 
river and the title to the land near the mouth of the 
stream. He especially desired to purchase New Orleans. 
Mr. Jefferson, however, wanted Florida as well as the 
mouth of the river. Spain was still in possession and the 
time seemed ripe for a treaty. The phenomenal and pro- 
phetic mind of the young Napoleon alone seemed to com- 
urehend the future possibilities of such a treaty. James 
Monroe was hurriedly called by Jefferson from his Vir- 
ginia home and sent as a special envoy to act with Mr. 
Livingston, and they were authorized to buy New Or- 
leans, the mouth of the river, and Florida for $2,000,000. 

But a new man had arisen in the affairs of Europe, a 
man of few words, but of prompt, vigorous, and decis- 
ive action. Napoleon promptly took the whole negotia- 
tion out of the hands of the wily and corrupt Talleyrand 
and placed it with Marbois, his minister of finance. Mar- 
bois had been in the United States and had acquired the 
most priceless of all treasures, an American wife, and the 
affair was in friendly hands. The First Consul fairly 
staggered our commissioners when he proposed to sell the 
whole domain for $15,000,000. Here was a region un- 
peopled by civilized men, extending from the Lake of the 
Woods to the Gulf, and of uncertain boundaries east and 
west, but unquestionably larger than Great Britain, Ger- 
many, France, Spain, Portugal, and Italy combined. 

When the uncertainties of the boundaries were refer- 
red to, Napoleon said: "If there were no uncertainties 
in the limits it would be necessary to invent some." He 
realized the value of an elastic boundary. He could put 
his own construction upon that. Great Britain has found 
it convenient in Alaska. Napoleon knew how untenable 



318 MAJOR JOHN F. LACEY 

this country was for him as against England, the mistress 
of the sea. He needed money. He was land poor; and 
so, with his laconic brevity, he fixed his terms and star- 
tled the American commissioners by the magnitude of the 
transaction. Fortunately, there was no Atlantic cable or 
steamship line, and the responsibility had to be assumed 
without further instructions, and the future author of the 
Monroe Doctrine was there, ready, willing, and brave 
enough to take the responsibility. 

Monroe landed April 1st, and on the 30th the contract 
was signed. We usually look upon great battles alone 
as the turning points of history. Arbela, Zama, Actium, 
Waterloo, Sedan, and such bloody scenes are usually the 
pivotal points in the affairs of men. But the habeas 
corpus, the bill of rights, the Declaration of Independence 
stand out with as much importance in the progress of 
mankind as do any of the bloody contests which have so 
changed the affairs of the world. 

Among the greatest of these peaceful landmarks in the 
world's history is the treaty that was finally consumma- 
ted on the 30th of April, 1803. It has been said that 
"Diplomacy can trot all day in a bushel measure," but it 
was not so with the diplomacy of Napoleon. When the 
treaty was finally signed, Bonaparte said in substance : 
"This strengthens forever the power of the United 
States. I have given England a rival who will some day 
take dominion of the sea. ' ' When the Spanish flag came 
down at New Orleans, that of France was raised, and 
floated for the brief period of twenty-five days, and then 
the stars and stripes were thrown to the breeze, and the 
American governor said to the surrounding people : 
"This cession secures to you and your descendants the 
heritance of liberty." 

In 1904, at St. Louis, we will celebrate this great event. 
In its effect upon human happiness it is one of the great- 



ADDRESSES OF MAJOR LACEY 319 

est that has ever occurred in the history of the world. 
No salutes were fired; no great enthusiasm prevailed in 
the United States when this treaty was made known. The 
nation could afford to wait one hundred years for the 
celebration. But although no noise was made in Amer- 
ica, the effects of the treaty soon made themselves felt on 
the other side of the Atlantic. Of the purchase money, 
$4,750,000 was applied on claims of Americans against 
France and the other $11,250,000 went into the great war 
chest of Napoleon, who expended it in the purchase of 
equipment for his great army. 

LOUISIANA AND AUSTERLITZ 

Harness, horses, wagons, clothing, powder, shot, shell, 
muskets, and cannons were bought with this money, and 
when the French army started from Boulogne to the fron- 
tier to meet the Austrian and Russian armies and under 
the December sun to fight the battle of Austerlitz, every 
shot that was fired was a voice from the Louisiana Pur- 
chase. When that battle ended, Napoleon was at the 
zenith of his martial glory, and Europe was at his feet. 
When William Pitt heard of the defeat he died of a brok- 
en heart. But now, after one hundred years, the results 
of that victory have passed away. Austerlitz has left 
but little impression upon the world of today. Napo- 
leon's light went out like an untended watch-fire on the 
rock of St. Helena, and France was humbled into her nar- 
row limits once more, but the peaceful results of the Lou- 
isiana treaty still endure. 

In 1803 France had 27,349,003 inhabitants, among the 
most prosperous, progressive, and happy that have ever 
lived. In fertility the Louisiana Purchase is equal or 
superior to France itself. Longfellow, in Evangeline, 
describes its soil — 

Smoothly the plowshare runs through the soil as a keel through 
the water. 



320 MAJOR JOHN F. LACEY 

From Winnipeg to Biloxi the same plants and grasses 
may be found, and though the variation of climate is 
great in so wide a range of latitude, the most valuable of 
all cereals will grow in the whole region. 

THE POWER OF COAX. 

The same native animals grazed from Hudson's Bay to 
the Mexican Gulf, but with all its wealth of soil, climate, 
forests, mountains, lakes, and rivers there is stored with- 
in its bosom the mineral power for ages yet to come. Not 
long ago a young Englishman, Mr. Coates, the superin- 
tendent of the Uruguay Railway in South America, asked 
me the question, "Do you realize what a tremendous 
handicap it would be upon your progress if every loco- 
motive that pulls a train out of New York, Baltimore, or 
Washington should be first coaled up from the mines of 
Wales or Australia? That is practically the situation in 
South America." In 1902, when for five months 150,000 
miners laid down their tools and ceased to work, we had 
in a small way a sample of a coalless continent. 

Imagine our country bereft of the great motive power 
which moves our trains, our steamers, and our factories, 
which makes life comfortable in the rigors of the north- 
ern midwinter. Without the coal the days of steam 
would have come in vain, and the age of electricity would 
have sought other fields. But the great Louisiana Pur- 
chase is filled with the most valuable deposits of coal, 
stored by the providence of God within its limits long 
before Adam found himself alone in Eden. 

UNEXAMPLED GROWTH 

Since the annexation of Louisiana its growth has been 
so reasonable, so expected, and so natural as to recall the 
explanation of the Irishman at Niagara. "See how it 
rolls down. Is it not grand? Is it not wonderful?" in- 



ADDRESSES OF MAJOR LACEY 321 

quired the hackman. "I don't see anything remarkable 
about it; it has to; there is nothing to hinder it," said 
Pat. 

What a splendid galaxy of stars was added to our flag ! 
Louisiana, Arkansas, Missouri, Iowa, Minnesota, Kansas, 
Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota, most of Colorado, 
Montana, and Wyoming, and all of Oklahoma and the 
Indian Territory have been carved out of the land ceded 
in the memorable treaty. The population in 1900 was 
nearly 15,000,000. Although the price was deemed some- 
thing startling, for $15,000,000 was a great sum in those 
days, today there are but few counties in Iowa whose as- 
sessment for taxation does not show a valuation of more 
than the whole cost of the Louisiana Purchase, and yet 
possibly some of the estimates of value have been given 
to the assessors with becoming modesty by the owners. 

St. Louis alone represents a valuation of $376,907,595. 

THE LIMESTONE SOIL AND ITS EENEWAL 

Much of the Louisiana Purchase is underlaid with lime- 
stone, which is a most enduring foundation of fertility. 
The soil of the state of Iowa, for example, nearly all is 
underlaid by a thousand feet of solid limestone. 

The great glacier cap which ages ago covered all the 
land from near the Missouri line to the Pole broke up 
the strata and produced the joint clay, thus opening up 
the passageway for the water from the surface to the 
solid rock. When the season is excessively wet, as in 
1902, the water has free access and searches the crevices 
in the rocks in the depths below. When it is too dry cap- 
illary attraction draws the moisture from beneath, and so 
by this simple provision of nature the extremes of 
drought and flood are minimized in their effect, and so we 
thank the glaciers for benefits accruing so long after they 
have disappeared ; but no doubt if man had then appeared 



322 MAJOR JOHN F. LACEY 

on the planet the glacial growler of that day would have 
seen only the dark side of the picture. 

But there is still another and perhaps more pleasing 
view of this subject. Limestone is not only a source of 
fertility, but it dissolves in water and thus renews the 
richness of the soil. In the floods of the last season the 
surface water reached and penetrated the limestone. 

Though the rain fell pure and free from lime, it at once 
began to dissolve and take up all the mineral that it 
could hold in solution, absorbing it from the rock itself. 
The water next to the stone having become charged with 
lime to the saturation point, the precious fertilizer slowly 
ascended until the water near the surface was nearly or 
perhaps as highly charged as that below. 

Thus hundreds of thousands of tons of fresh lime, the 
richest of manures, is lifted to the soil near the surface, 
and when the water evaporates there the precious fer- 
tilizer remains to perpetually renew the fruitful soil. 
With thousands of feet in depth of this rich deposit as a 
base of supplies, we can face the future full of hope. 

France has had two thousand crops in two thousand 
years, because her fertile soil lies over a similar source 
of perpetual renewal. 

I am not sure that this suggestion of the elevation by 
the action of water of fertilizing material from beneath 
the underlying strata has been adequately considered by 
men who have made a special study of the chemistry of 
the soil. In the plains of Lombardy the running water 
deposits in the bottoms of the irrigating ditches material 
dissolved from the Alps. The farmers there mix the 
sediment with stubble and spread it over their fields, thus 
keeping their lands as good as new. 

With such resources the future fertility of that part of 
the Louisiana Purchase is assured. 

I like to take a cheerful view of our future. I am an 



ADDRESSES OF MAJOR LACEY 323 

optimist. The statement I have just made is a full an- 
swer to the pessimists who prophesy the early decay of 
our fruitfulness. With these prophets of evil I have 
never had any sympathy. 

I approve of the opinion of the old German who de- 
fined a pessimist as "a man who in a choice of two evils 
takes both of them." 

Iowa was carved out of that empire ; she was part of 
Louisiana, then of the district of Louisiana, next placed 
by Congress in the territory of Missouri. Had that law 
remained unchanged the people of Iowa would have been 
Missourians. Then Iowa became a part of Michigan, 
next of Wisconsin, and finally she was molded into her 
present form by the legislative hand. The memory of 
the early days of the whole Louisiana domain will be now 
revived in all the states within its borders. 

THE PIONEER DAYS 

The pioneer days of Iowa are ever a source of pleasure, 
either in memory or in history. "In all that is good, 
Iowa affords the best," is the terse way that her favorite 
son, Sid Foster, has of putting in a few words what 
everybody recognizes to be true. We all look back with 
pleasure upon those old days. 

Dr. Robert Gray says that "the past is full of pleasing 
recollections, the future is full of hope; we all quarrel 
with the present." 

As Henry W. Grady said, the "old house that whistled 
when the wind blew and wept when it rained, ' ' stands out 
in our memory with greater delight than the most sump- 
tuous of our modern homes. 

Every nation looks with reverence, if not with super- 
stition, upon its ancestors. Usually their origin is traced 
to the supernatural. But in our own short career we are 
able to follow our ancestry into a plain, practical, and 



324 MAJOR JOHN F. LACEY 

God-fearing original. The best of the races of northern 
Europe, either directly or through their descendants in 
the older states, have settled in the Louisiana Purchase, 
and from them have sprung the composite people who 
now inhabit that land. But as men grow older they look 
with increasing interest upon all the traditions of their 
forefathers. 

Heredity and blood increase in importance as the years 
roll by, and it is a pleasure to know that the stock from 
which this population has been formed has such an hon- 
orable history. 

IOWA A-Y-A-U-W-A-Y 

Thomas Jefferson was an enterprising man; his rest- 
less mind was always boiling with plans. No sooner had 
the treaty been made than the Lewis and Clark expedi- 
tion was planned and started out from St. Louis, and the 
long journey was begun. We first find the word "Iowa" 1 
in the record of this exploring party, and it is spelled 
" A-y-a-u-w-a-y. ' ' The voyage up the river, the winter at 
Mandan, the journey across the mountains to the mouth 
of the Columbia, the second winter there, and the return 
to St. Louis read like the tale of another journey of Jason 
in search of the golden fleece. When these discoverers 
returned and told their story of adventure at Washing- 
ton the Americans began indeed to dream dreams of the 
future, but those visions were only feeble suggestions of 
what the realities have become. 

THE WORLD'S PROGRESS 

We can best note the progress of the world by com- 
parison. When Augustus ruled the world the Mediter- 
ranean was a Roman lake. One hundred and twenty 
million people were under the dominion of the Caesars. 
But Augustus, rich and great as he was, never read a 



ADDRESSES OF MAJOR LACEY 325 

newspaper, never traveled more than twelve miles an 
hour, never received a telegram, never had a pane of 
glass in his house, never saw an ear of corn or a potato. 
He had peacocks upon his table, but never tickled his 
palate with the flesh of a turkey, never knew the use of 
tobacco, and never had a shirt on his back. 

If we were to go into the workhouse of today and re- 
move from the daily supply of its occupants everything 
that had been invented since the Augustan age, the in- 
mates of such an institution would regard themselves as 
being the most ill-treated of mankind. 

In 1453, when the Turk captured Constantinople, the 
learning of the Greeks was dispersed all over Europe, 
and the world was all the better prepared to avail itself 
of the discoveries of 1492. The sea had for ages rolled 
around the known world as a complete bar to human 
progress; it has become a highway; now it unites, rather 
than divides, the continents. Natural gas was worshiped 
by the ancients as a manifestation of the gods; now it is 
harnessed for the use of man. 

The priestess at Delphi intoxicated herself with its 
fumes and saw visions. At Kokomo, man has made it an 
utility. At Guadaloupe, Mexico, a bubbling spring was 
looked upon and worshiped as a miraculous healer of the 
Aztecs ; but in our day and generation mineral springs 
become practical and scientific cures. The scientist and 
geologist have supplanted the barbarian and sorcerer, 
and old-time soothsayers would have been struck dumb 
with the exploits of Edison. Ghosts hide themselves 
from the light of scientific day. McKinley held his ear 
to the telephone at Canton and listened to the shouting 
multitudes at the convention at St. Louis. The results 
of the Olympic games in Greece, a few years ago, were 
known in St. Louis five hours before the races started, if 
we make no allowance for the difference in time. 



326 MAJOR JOHN F. LACEY 

Seneca foretold that Ultima Thule would no longer 
mark the boundaries of the world. Now, the railway 
runs to Jerusalem ; we have found the mouth of the Niger 
and the source of the Nile. Before many years a child 
may be put on the train at Chicago in charge of the con- 
ductor to be landed at Buenos Ayres; Khartoum and 
Albert Nyanza will be dinner stations on the Cairo and 
Cape Town Railway; the world, after all, is growing 
smaller. 

THE COST OF OUE TERRITORIAL ACQUISITIONS 

It is interesting at this day to note the cost of the 
various territorial purchases which up to the time of the 
Spanish war have been added to our national domain. 
Our last purchase I will not discuss at this time, for it is 
too early to count the cost and value of Porto Rico and 
the Philippines. We paid for Louisiana only three and 
three-tenths cents an acre, the best investment ever made 
by any nation since the dawn of history. 

To Spain we gave for Florida 17.1 cents an acre; to 
Mexico, 4.5 for the first purchase, and then 34.3 for the 
Gadsden Purchase in southern Arizona, the highest priced 
of all our acquisitions. Georgia sold her territorial 
rights for 10.1 cents an acre. The most doubtful ex- 
pansion of all was when William Henry Seward made the 
purchase of the icebergs of Alaska at 1.19 cents an acre. 

Mr. Seward said that his reputation in history would 
mainly rest on this act of statesmanship, and for many 
years his expected honor remained in cold storage in that 
inhospitable land. But time has vindicated the wisdom of 
Mr. Seward, and Alaska is no longer the least prized of 
our possessions. 

But of all additions to our republic none have been 
freighted with such great possibilities for the good of the 
nation as the acquisition of the territory of Louisiana. 



ADDRESSES OF MAJOR LACEY 327 

The West is no longer there. There is the center of 
our land. There will soon be the center of population 
and power. 

From the Euphrates, the Tigris, and the Nile to the 
Tiber, from the Tiber to the Seine and the Thames, from 
the Seine and the Thames to the Hudson, the Potomac, 
and the Mississippi, the star of empire has taken its way, 
ever to the west ; and now it is shining brightly upon the 
states which have been formed out of the territory of 
Louisiana. 



THE MONROE DOCTRINE x 

Holidays are of slow growth, in as busy a nation as 
ours; holidays are only chosen because of some great 
purpose involved in their celebration. The day we cele- 
brate is the greatest of all anniversaries, for it commem- 
orates the birth of a nation. 

It is usual to devote the day to the noisiest form of 
patriotism. The liberty bell that rang in our first na- 
tional birthday has been broken and voiceless for many 
years; but bells and guns and voices have taken up the 
chorus, and the old liberty bell can afford to be silent. 

This day is well spent when it is devoted to patriotic 
impulses and the revival of great national sentiments. 
I have concluded to depart somewhat from the usual 
course of speakers on this occasion, and in so doing I 
hope we will not lose sight of the fact that the subject 
which I shall discuss is one vital to the well-being of this 
nation, and essential to the preservation of its liberties 
and independence. 

It is common to speak in general terms of the Monroe 
Doctrine. The principles of that doctrine are approved 
by every political party in the United States. In dis- 
cussing this question we can all unite in one common pa- 
triotic sentiment ; and upon this sacred day there are too 
many things that we can unite upon to render it either 
necessary or desirable that we should discuss any of the 
things upon which we are divided. The duties of this 
nation expand with its greatness ; our country dominates 
in the western hemisphere, and we owe a duty to the New 
World in which our nation has grown so great. 

1 Address at Eldon, Iowa, July 4, 1895, by John F. Lacey. 



ADDRESSES OF MAJOR LACEY 329 

The discovery of America on the one hand, and the cir- 
cumnavigation of the Cape of Good Hope upon the other, 
opened up endless avenues of growth, progress, wealth, 
and liberty. The Cape of Good Hope had long been 
known as the "Cape of Storms." When once it was 
found that it pointed the way to India, it ceased to be the 
"Cape of Storms" and became instead the Cape of Good 
Hope; and from this promontory civilization is now 
reaching out and spreading over the dark continent itself. 
The great western ocean was believed to be filled with 
danger, monsters, and death, until Columbus showed it 
was a pathway to the New World. 

Standing a few years ago in St. Mark's Cathedral, at 
Venice, and looking, with my wife, at the mosaic pictures 
of Europe, Asia, and Africa, in the dome, my wife turned 
suddenly to me and said, "Where is America?" and sure 
enough in this perfect and beautiful arch there was no 
allegory to represent the New World. It was still un- 
known. 

The Spaniards led the way to America, the Portuguese 
led the way by the Cape of Good Hope to India. Both 
these nations claimed the earth and the fullness thereof, 
by reason of their great discoveries. Pope Alexander 
the Sixth took a chart of the new discoveries, and claimed 
as the vicar of Christ, the right to divide the New World. 
And one of the most interesting exhibits at the World's 
Fair in Chicago was the original manuscript of the pope's 
bull by which the hemisphere was thus divided between 
the Spanish and the Portuguese crowns. 

The civilization of the Aztecs and the Incas was re- 
morselessly divided between rival dynasties who repre- 
sented the divine right of kings. 

In ancient times the flight of birds was watched by the 
soothsayers with profound interest. Columbus sailed 
due west until the flight of the parrots flying over the 



330 MAJOR JOHN F. LACEY 

ships to the southwest caused the seamen to urge upon 
their leader to follow the birds. 

Many an ancient battle was fought because the birds 
gave signs of victory ; and never was so momentous a con- 
clusion resultant upon the observation of the fowls of the 
air, as when Columbus followed them to the West Indies, 
instead of landing upon the coast of the United States. 
The Indies and South America became Spanish; North 
America was left open for the Anglo-Saxon. No nation 
has ever yet shown the same power as a colonizer as has 
been exhibited by the English people. She learned a les- 
son in our Revolutionary War which has taught her to 
retain her other colonies by the gentlest of ties. She has 
given to them the power of local self-government, even 
to the extent that they may legislate against the trade of 
the mother country. The Revolution has led to far- 
reaching results. It has done much more than to merely 
lay the foundation for the great republic in which we 
live. The French who helped us in the war carried back 
to Europe the germs of liberty, which ultimately grew 
into the great Revolution in which the Bourbon dynasty 
went down in blood. 

Napoleon's empire rose upon its ruins, and after twen- 
ty years in which he strode the earth as a colossus, an al- 
liance against him was formed between Prussia, Russia, 
Austria, and England. 

This was the foundation of the celebrated alliance. 
When Napoleon was overthrown and sent to the rock of 
St. Helena, the Holy Alliance was still continued to pre- 
vent any further uprising of the people of Europe. Nor 
need we wonder at the term Holy Alliance, as adopted by 
an organization whose object was to destroy human lib- 
erty. The word "Holy" was one to conjure with, and at 
one time the principal bank in Rome was known as the 



ADDRESSES OF MAJOR LACEY 331 

1 'Bank of the Holy Ghost," so called to give it an odor 
of sanctity, and secure large deposits. 

Some idea of the holy character of this alliance may be 
obtained from the secret treaty of Verona, signed in 
1822, made by Austria, France, Prussia, and Russia, Eng- 
land having withdrawn. I quote from it : 

The high contracting powers being convinced that the system 
of representative government is equally incompatible with the 
monarchical principles as the maxim of the sovereignity of the 
people with the divine right, engage mutually, in the most 
solemn manner, to use all their efforts to put an end to the sys- 
tem of representative governments, in whatever country it may 
exist in Europe, and to prevent its being introduced in those 
countries where it is not yet known. 

As it cannot be doubted that the liberty of the press is the most 
powerful means used by the pretended supporters of the rights 
of nations, to the detriment of those Princes, the high contract- 
ing parties promise reciprocally to adopt all proper measures to 
suppress it, not only in their own states, but also, in the rest of 
Europe. 

It became an unholy Alliance against the liberties of the 
world. Metternich was the schemer who organized and 
held it together. He represented the old order of things, 
and so wedded was he to existing abuses that he did not 
even view with pleasure the attempts of Greece to get 
back her place in the ranks of civilization. Mettternich 
was for the existing privileges, whether Austrian or Turk. 

The progressive spirit of Great Britain led to her 
withdrawal from this alliance. Spain, when she de- 
stroyed the civilization of Mexico and Peru, and de- 
troyed the lives of the gentle inhabitants of the West 
Indies, divided South America with Portugal, and held 
much of the fairest portion of North America. Genera- 
tions of misrule drove the Spanish colonies to revolt 
against the mother country. The colonies maintained 



332 MAJOR JOHN P. LACEY 

their independence in the open field; the United States 
alone recognized their independence. 

The so-called Holy Alliance looked with distrust upon 
the addition of so vast a territory to the domain of re- 
publicanism, and conspired to aid the Spanish Bourbons 
in the conquest of the colonies. 

Great Britain looked upon the situation with the cun- 
ning eye of a trader. The restoration of these colonies 
would cripple her commerce in Mexico and South Amer- 
ica, and strange as it may seem Great Britain herself 
encouraged the American government in announcing the 
celebrated doctrine that bears the name of President 
Monroe. 

The United States bought Florida from Spain, Louis- 
iana from Napoleon, and Alaska from Russia. As the 
result of the Mexican War, and of contracts of purchase, 
she acquired Texas and that vast region embracing the 
mountains and the Pacific Coast, which is today in itself 
sufficient for an empire. Every step taken by our fore- 
fathers has been in the direction of controlling this con- 
tinent; $50,000,000 were paid in these various contracts 
of purchase. We often hear the Monroe Doctrine spoken 
of approvingly but in vague and general terms. 

Let us go a little more into detail ; I believe we should 
all agree upon it in its full shape and bearing today. 
When Monroe was elected President of the United States 
his administration met the approval of all parties. His 
term of office is often spoken of as the "era of good 
feeling. ' ' 

Commercially we have always been deeply affected by 
European influences. Politically it is our policy to stand 
aloof from all entangements with the Old World. Elec- 
tric cables and ocean ferries in bringing us nearer to 
Europe increase our danger and make the necessity of 
adherence to the doctrine of Monroe all the greater. 



ADDRESSES OF MAJOR LACEY 333 

Monroe was born in 1758, in Virginia; at the age of 
twenty-four he entered the state legislature and soon af- 
ter became a member of Congress. He was not brilliant 
but he was practical. Good common-sense characterized 
all his public life. His young manhood was spent in the 
Continental army where he was wounded fighting for the 
independence of his country ; and there is no better train- 
ing for a citizen than the service of his country in time 
of war. 

In 1790 Monroe became a senator of the United States. 
In 1794 he was a minister to France, where the cause of 
French freedom excited his warmest sympathies. He 
was recalled in 1796 and in 1799 was elected governor of 
Virginia, and was twice reelected. 

In 1803 he and Livingston were selected by Jefferson 
to purchase New Orleans of Napoleon, in order to give 
an outlet by the Mississippi to the ocean. Monroe al- 
ways builded better than he knew, and instead of buying 
New Orleans he bought Louisiana. Instead of obtaining 
a city and the river mouth he obtained a mighty empire ; 
the splendid state of Iowa being only a small part of it. 

In 1804 he was minister to England, and recalled in 
1807. In 1810 he was not above serving his people in 
the smaller things and went again to the legislature of 
his state ; in 1812 he was called as secretary of state into 
the cabinet of Madison. In 1814 during those stormy 
times he served also as secretary of war, and in 1816, 
when the second war with England closed in a glorious 
peace he was elected President of the United States, and 
reelected again in 1820. He united the most discordant 
elements by a firm but practical policy that has never 
been excelled. 

John Q. Adams and John C. Calhoun sat in his cabinet. 
The purchase of Florida, to which I have alluded, was 
made by him in 1819. 



334 MAJOR JOHN F. LACEY 

In 1823, when Mexico and South America were con- 
vulsed with the war, which resulted in their permanent 
separation from Spain, the Holy Alliance were about to 
interfere in behalf of monarchy and against the freedom 
of the people in the New World. 

They believed that they had crushed out all the germs 
of democracy in Europe. They were determined that 
freedom should not spread in the new continents. It 
was then, after much discussion and preparation, that 
President Monroe sent in his celebrated message to Con- 
gress. Let me read that part of it which has become so 
famous : 

In the discussion to which this interest has given rise, and in 
the arrangements by which they may terminate, the occasion has 
been adjudged proper for asserting, as a principle in which the 
rights and interests of the United States are involved, that the 
American continents, by the free and independent condition 
which they have assumed and maintain, are henceforth not to be 
considered as subjects for colonization by any European powers. 

It was stated at the commencement of the last session that a 
great effort was then making in Spain and Portugal, to improve 
the condition of the people of those countries, and that it ap- 
peared to be conducted with extraordinary moderation. It need 
scarcely be remarked that the result has been, so far, very differ- 
ent from what was then anticipated. Of events in that quarter of 
the globe, with which we have so much intercourse and from 
which we derive our origin, we have always been anxious and in- 
terested spectators. The citizens of the United States cherish sen- 
timents the most friendly in favor of the liberty and happiness of 
their fellow-men on that side of the Atlantic. In the wars of 
European powers, in matters relating to themselves, we have 
never taken any part, nor does it comport with our policy so to do. 
It is only when our rights are invaded or seriously menaced, that 
we resent injuries or make preparation for our defense. With the 
movements in this hemisphere we are of necessity more imme- 
diately connected, and by causes which must be obvious to all en- 
lightened and impartial observers. The political system of the 



^ 



ADDRESSES OF MAJOR LACEY 335 

allied powers is essentially different in this respect from that of 
America. This difference proceeds from that which exists in 
their respective governments. And to the defense of our own, 
which has been achieved by the loss of so much blood and treas- 
ure and material, by the wisdom of their most enlightened citi- 
zens, and under which we have enjoyed unexampled felicity, this 
whole nation is devoted. 

"We owe it, therefore, to candor, and to the amicable relations 
existing between the United States and those powers, to declare, 
that we should consider any attempt on their part to extend 
their system to any portion of this hemisphere as dangerous to 
our peace and safety. With the existing colonies or depend- 
encies of any European power we have not interfered, and shall 
not interfere. But with the governments who have declared 
their independence and maintained it, and whose independence 
we have, on great consideration and on just principles, acknowl- 
edged, we could not view any interposition for the purpose of 
oppressing them, or controlling in any manner their destiny, by 
any European power, in any other light than as the manifestation 
of an unfriendly disposition towards the United States. 

Our policy in regard to Europe, which was adopted at an 
early stage of the wars which have so long agitated that quarter 
of the globe, nevertheless remains the same, which is not to in- 
terfere in the internal concerns of any of its powers ; to consider 
the government de facto, as the legitimate government for us; 
to cultivate friendly relations with it, and to preserve those re- 
lations by a frank, firm, and manly policy; meeting, in all in- 
stances, the just claims of every power, submitting to injuries 
from none. But in regard to these continents, circumstances are 
eminently and conspicuously different. It is impossible that the 
allied powers should extend their political system to any portion 
of either continent without endangering our peace and happi- 
ness; nor can any one believe that our southern (Spanish Amer- 
ican) brethren, if left to themselves, would adopt it of their own 
accord. It is equally impossible, therefore, that we should be- 
hold such interposition, in any form, with indifference. 

It was a grand thing for President Monroe to look the 



336 MAJOR JOHN F. LACEY 

Holy Alliance of Germany, Austria, and Russia in the 
face, and say to them, "Hands off." The principles of 
this doctrine are not complicated, but it is asserted in 
unmistakable terms that "America is for Americans; 
that there should be no entangling alliances, by the Unit- 
ed States, in the politics of Europe. There shall be no 
colonization in any part of either of the western con- 
tinents, excepting those that had already been founded." 
The existing order of things in America was not dis- 
turbed; it was firmly but clearly announced that whilst 
the United States would not rule two continents, yet she 
would protect them. 

The question of indorsing this message by formal reso- 
lution in Congress came up, but was never acted upon; 
but there has never been a time since Mr. Monroe sound- 
ed this note of warning that his views have not been in 
full accord with the people of the United States, and in 
my judgment it is time for Congress to endorse this prin- 
ciple by direct action. The recognition of the Spanish 
republics by the United States, and the announcement 
that any interference by any other country would be re- 
garded as unfriendly to our government, speedily re- 
sulted in the permanent independence of these republics. 

Great events and their declarations come and pass by, 
and are forgotten. Other events and other declarations 
project themselves far into the future. England re- 
ceived the announcement of Monroe with favor and ap- 
proval, but today is seeking to establish her dominion in 
violation of that doctrine, over a large part of the repub- 
lics of Venezuela. In violation of that doctrine she seized 
the port of Corinto in Nicaragua, and attempted to hold 
that little city to collect a self-imposed fine upon the 
republic, for the alleged ill treatment of Vice Consul 
Hatch. These breaches of our declared policy have gone 



ADDRESSES OP MAJOR LACEY 337 

unrebuked, but the American people are not ready to 
abandon the policy of the last seventy-two years. 

The Nicaragua incident has closed, but closed without 
any proper protest of our government. The wrongful 
claims upon Venezuela are still asserted, and although 
the United States has suggested arbitration, the British 
government refuses such friendly suggestions. 

It has long been the British policy when possession of 
any territory has once been obtained, to hold it at all 
hazards. Temporary possession of Egypt was taken to 
secure, for the time being, British creditors who held in- 
vestments there. Not long ago an English statesman 
was asked when the government would surrender Egypt. 
He replied, "We will get out of Egypt when we get out 
of Pimlico." And so it will be found in Venezuela, un- 
less our government, true to its principles, asserts again 
that the Monroe Doctrine is a living principle in the 
western hemisphere. 

The Monroe Doctrine is not for ornament: it is for use. 
Even the good, able, and kind Dom Pedro has surrender- 
ed his crown in Brazil. Spain's hold upon Cuba is relax- 
ing. When the War of the Rebellion broke out we had 
an opportunity to see how ready the monarchies of the 
Old World were to break down the free governments of 
North and South America. The Monroe Doctrine slept 
for a time for lack of power on the part of our govern- 
ment, to enforce it. "Napoleon the Little" — Victor 
Hugo calls him to distinguish him from his gigantic un- 
cle. Says Hugo, "This man would tarnish the back- 
ground of history but absolutely sullies its foreground." 
Availing himself of our domestic war, this man set up 
an Austrian archduke as Emperor in Mexico. Soon af- 
ter he furnished the means with which to publish The 
Imperialist, a newspaper in the city of New York, devoted 



338 MAJOR JOHN F. LACEY 

to the building up of monarchy in the United States. 
This impudent publication was not suppressed, but was 
treated with deserved and silent contempt, until it died 
for want of nourishment. 

But when the war closed in 1865 the empire in Mexico, 
upheld by French bayonets, was in existence, in defiance 
of the Monroe Doctrine. It was not in peaceable posses- 
sion, for the Mexican people had risen in arms in every 
state, and Benito Juarez was making a manly fight for 
the independence of his country. 

It was my good fortune at the close of the war, in June, 
1865, to be sent to the Rio Grande on the Texas side, as 
an adjutant-general of the Army of Observation of forty 
thousand men, sent there by General Grant. The pur- 
pose of this army was readily understood by the French 
and Austrians in Mexico. Such a force drawn up along 
the narrow river which separates the two countries creat- 
ed a great sensation among the European invaders. I 
well remember a letter of General Grant, written to Gen- 
eral Steele, who commanded that army. They had been 
classmates at school and the General wrote with a frank- 
ness different from ordinary communications between 
military men. I have no copy of that letter, and I do not 
find that it has ever been published. The letter instruct- 
ed the general commanding the Army of Observation of 
the Rio Grande as to the course to be taken in relation 
to the Confederate forces under General Dick Taylor. 
It referred to the fact that cavalry would be sent into the 
interior of Texas, and other details of a possible cam- 
paign west of the Mississippi. It then approached the 
subject of the diversion in favor of Mexico, using this 
language : 

As to affairs in Mexico, you will observe a strict neutrality be- 
tween the hostile forces; by neutrality, however, I mean the 
French and English acceptation of that term. 



ADDRESSES OF MAJOR LACEY 339 

With the recent experience we had had as to the French 
and English neutrality in the War of the Rebellion, there 
was no misunderstanding General Grant's purpose; and 
General Steele quietly issued ammunition to the repub- 
lican forces in Mexico, who crossed the Rio Grande for 
that purpose. 

This sort of Monroe Doctrine from General Grant, 
backed with forty thousand men, made that doctrine man- 
ifest to the most unobserving. There is no argument so 
convincing as an army. Our government requested 
France to withdraw, and France withdrew. I have al- 
ways felt that the Mexicans were too severe in their hour 
of victory; that when Maximilian, Miramon, and Mejia 
were shot by a file of soldiers at Queretero, that it would 
have been better to have turned them loose as we did the 
leaders of the Rebellion. But the Mexicans had much 
to complain of, and they felt that the Monroe Doctrine 
of non-interference in their country needed to be em- 
phasized by such an example that no other European 
prince would ever desire to wear an American crown; 
and, perhaps, they were wiser after all, however much 
we may sorrow for the empress, "Poor Carlotta. " 

We are constantly confronted with the Clayton-Bulwer 
Treaty, in all attempts to connect the Atlantic with the 
Pacific Ocean. When that treaty was made, the great 
possibilities of California, Oregon, and Washington were 
unknown. English capital proposed to embark jointly 
with ours in the construction of a canal through Nicara- 
gua. English diplomatists nave been proverbial for their 
long insight into the future. Trained to diplomacy as a 
profession they obtained in that celebrated treaty condi- 
tions which have been very embarrassing to our govern- 
ment. There seems to be no intent upon her part to ever 
build the canal or help build it, but to hold that treaty 



340 MAJOR JOHN F. LACEY 

as a menace over the control of any canal which our 
people may ever build. 

The treaty provides that the canal shall "never be in 
the control exclusively either of the United States or 
Great Britain ; and that neither of said governments will 
ever direct or maintain any fortification commanding the 
same, or in the vicinity thereof, or occupy or fortify or 
colonize or exercise any dominion over Nicaragua, Costa 
Rica, the Mosquito Coast or any part of Central Amer- 
ica. " By this provision our government, after her peo- 
ple shall have built the canal, is precluded from fortifying 
it; her ability to defend it being limited to her capacity 
to defend it by armed vessels upon the water. This 
would enable England with her superior naval force to 
control the canal after we shall have built it. 

If any European nation desires to attack England, in 
India, she must go round the Cape of Good Hope to reach 
her, whilst England protects herself with the short route 
through the Suez Canal. In like manner any country 
that seeks to attack our western coast would be compelled 
to go around Cape Horn, whilst we would retain the canal 
through Nicaragua. The Clayton-Bulwer Treaty lost 
sight of the principles of the Monroe Doctrine which we 
are discussing today, and that mistake has thus far pre- 
vented the construction of the canal itself. 

The doctrine of Monroe is not limited in North Amer- 
ica. Its beneficial influences extend from Bering Strait 
to Cape Horn. It recognizes and enforces the principle 
that this hemisphere is able to take care of its own affairs. 

Colonies which have become independent from the 
mother country are henceforth to be free. Colonies which 
still maintain their allegiance will in no wise be disturbed. 
But the old days when vast areas of unpeopled lands 
could be divided up as a result of European treaties is 
past never to return. 



ADDRESSES OF MAJOR LACEY 341 

It was a brave thing for Monroe as a ruler over a little 
nation of ten millions, in 1822, to lay down this law to the 
world. It would be a cowardly thing for a great nation 
of seventy millions of people to abandon so just and 
necessary a principle. 



REMINISCENCES OF OSKALOOSA CITY PARK x 

In 1879, when James A. Rice was mayor of this city, he 
took a vacation in New England. One beautiful Sunday 
morning he was walking past the home of Ralph Waldo 
Emerson, and the flowers, trees, and shrubbery looked so 
inviting that he strolled in through the open gate. 

Mr. Emerson saw him and walked out and welcomed 
him to his home, and inquired of the young man where 
he was from. Mr. Rice proudly replied that he was from 
Oskaloosa, Mahaska County, Iowa. 

"Say that again,' said the Sage of Concord; "that is 
beautiful," and then repeated the words with his visitor, 
"Oskaloosa, Mahaska County, Iowa." The euphony of 
the name catches the ear of the stranger. 

On the first day of May, 1843, the "New Purchase," as 
it was called, was opened, and the settlers not waiting for 
daylight flocked in with torches and lanterns and staked 
out their claims. 

On the eleventh day of May, 1844, Jesse Williams, Ebe- 
nezer Perkins, and Thomas Henderson, as commissioners, 
located the county seat for the new county of Mahaska; 
and Micajah T. Williams, the first clerk of the county, 
christened the town with the name of a Creek Princess, 
Oskaloosa, who was the wife of the heroic Seminole, Osce- 
ola. 

In May, 1843, as the pioneers came up to the divide be- 
tween the two rivers they saw in their front the forests 
from the two rivers approaching so nearly together as to 
make a gateway which they called "the Narrows." 

i Address by Major John F. Lacey at the Harvest Home Festival, Oska- 
loosa, Iowa, Wednesday, October 23, 1912. 



ADDRESSES OF MAJOR LACEY 343 

On the tenth day after the opening of the county to 
settlement the southeast quarter of section thirteen, town- 
ship seventy-five, range sixteen, at the Narrows, was 
selected as the county-seat. It was a site for a beautiful 
farm and bore the number thirteen, which is often a lucky 
number. 

A. S. Nichols, Robert Curry, and AVilson Stanley were 
appointed commissioners to plat the future city. Silver 
and gold the people had but little of, but of the town lots 
the county held plenty and so A. S. Nichols for laying out 
and platting the town received the two lots on High Aven- 
ue, where the interurban station now stands, and the 
"Eye Tooth Lot" at the southwest corner of the square, 
now occupied by Holtman & Baker's grocery. 

I first saw this public square in April, 1855. It was 
grown up with dog fennel and was the center of the 
business of the growing little city. The lumber wagons 
of the farmers surrounded it on Saturdays and were 
much in evidence on the other days of the week. 

Gradually the dirt had accumulated in the streets 
around it so that after a heavy rain this park was a shal- 
low lake, which, in cold weather, was an ideal skating rink 
and an unfailing source of delight to the boys of that day. 

In the fall of 1855 the first county fair was held at 
Oskaloosa and long tables in this square were covered 
with the finest of vegetables, giving evidence of the fruit- 
fulness of this fertile land. 

The cattle show was held in some feed lots of Mr. 
Marks, south of where the Oskaloosa College now stands. 

This square was not located in the center of the town 
tract, but it was so located that the water from the south 
side of the alley on the west then ran to the Des Moines 
and the water from the north side of that alley to Skunk 
River. 



344 MAJOR JOHN F. LACEY 

It will be seventy years on the eleventh of next May 
that this place has been the center of the thoughts and 
affections of the people of this county. No county-seat 
war has ever marred the selection, and the people of the 
whole county have, during all these years, pointed with 
pardonable pride to the growth of the city which has 
steadily expanded from this center. 

On May 12, 1909, the splendid statue of old Mahaska 
was unveiled, and two ladies, Mrs. Phillips and Mrs. Mar- 
tin, who were settlers in 1843, drew aside the veil which 
exposed that work of art and historic memorial to the 
gaze of twelve thousand cheering spectators. 

In 1855 there were but three brick buildings on this 
square : one where the Golden Eagle store now stands, a 
dwelling remodeled for mercantile purposes where the 
Baldauf store now stands, and the old Union Block which 
still remains. 

At the northwest corner stood the frame court-house, 
long after moved to "West High Street by J. B. Noe and 
known as "Noe's Ark." 

All the other buildings were frame, and many a suc- 
cessful battle of the bucket brigade, under Henry Tredick, 
preserved these fragile structures until the march of bus- 
iness compelled their removal and replacement by the 
beautiful buildings which now have taken their places. 
The old Oskaloosa House and Madison House, both frame 
buildings, stood fronting on the park and sheltered the 
immigrant and stage coach passenger who kept the roads 
in use from the Mississippi to the Missouri. 

Utility was the first purpose of this park and the idea 
of beautifying it came later. Not long before the Civil 
War the leading men of the town volunteered to each 
plant a tree here and for many years these trees were 
known as Garl Phillips's tree, Seevers's tree, Rice's tree, 
Eastman's tree, Needham's tree, and like names. 



ADDRESSES OF MAJOR LACEY 345 

But their identity is now lost, and I think I can only 
point out the one planted by Philip Meyers. 

The poet, George W. Seevers, wrote some verses to 
commemorate the planting of his tree on the east side of 
the park. Unfortunately, it had to be cut down a couple 
of years ago, because of decay. I remember a part of 
one of Mr. Seevers 's verses: 

I have a monument reared by my own hands, 
In the town of renowned Oskaloosa it stands 
In the form of a White Elm tree. 

In Padua beyond the sea the students and noted men 
of the city have been commemorated by almost a regi- 
ment of marble statues. The example will be followed 
here in time. 

Here has been the center of not only the activities of 
the city but of the county as well. When I was a boy 
occasionally a man excessively well dressed and decorat- 
ed with jewelry would spend a few days at one of the 
hotels and when curiosity was excited by his unusual 
display some one would ask, "Who is that?" And the 
old reply would be, "I don 't know, but I think he is one 
of the men who is proposing to lay the public square out 
into town lots." 

In fact, in those days the square always looked like it 
might be improved in appearance by such treatment. 

It was into this old square that Lieutenant-Governor 
Enoch W. Eastman marched one day carrying his axe on 
his shoulder, and when asked what it meant answered 
that he had ' ' shouldered his axe and left his old political 
party. ' ' 

Those were stirring times and others followed his ex- 
ample, and the saying that a man had "shouldered his 
axe" became a by-word of the day. 

It was here that political and business gatherings have 
been wont to assemble during the three score and ten 



346 MAJOR JOHN F. LACEY 

years that our city has been on the map. In the fullness 
of time the beautifying of this plat of ground has been 
brought to our attention. 

If you visit Florence they will show you the wonderful 
statue chiseled by Michael Angelo for the merchant 
prince, Cosmo de Medici, who has made people forgive 
his excessive wealth by the good things he has done with 
it. 

Our public spirited citizenship has combined to pave 
and beautify this park. J. D. Edmundson, out of his 
prosperity, has given us a priceless statue of Mahaska. 
Our old-time citizen, Sam Baldauf, will long be remem- 
bered by the beautiful fountain that commemorates his 
name and which we dedicate today. 

Admiral Frank F. Fletcher has sent to his native city 
the Spanish mine which now stands near us, and which 
is probably a duplicate of the one which destroyed the 
Maine ; and near by will soon be placed upon a suitable 
pedestal the relics of the Maine herself, which he before 
you, recovered from the mud and ooze of Havana Harbor, 
procured, also, by the same gallant sailor. 

The big guns which stand by it, it was my personal 
good fortune to ' ' borrow ' ' from Uncle Sam to add to our 
city's decorations. It is true that they are only loaned 
but our good uncle will never call for their return: like 
the $28,000,000 of public land money deposited with the 
states by the general government nearly eighty years ago, 
the loan will remain permanent. 

In this square many of the greatest men of the nation 
have spoken to our citizens : Burrows, the eloquent son 
of Michigan; Henry Clay Dean, the erratic extremist; 
Ben M. Samuels and Samuel J. Kirkwood, in their great 
campaigns for the governorship of Iowa; and various un- 
successful candidates, including the eloquent and versa- 



ADDRESSES OF MAJOR LACEY 347 

tile Bryan; the great statesman, Blaine; and General 
Weaver, the brilliant orator and campaigner. 

Two presidents of the United States have visited this 
park and spoken within the hearing of its crowds — 
Roosevelt and Taft. General Logan spoke to a vast au- 
dience here when he was a candidate for the vice-presi- 
dency in 1884. 

Probably the meeting that excited the greatest enthus- 
iasm and satisfaction that ever was held here was the 
Soldiers' Reunion in August, 1865. The war was over 
and "Johnnie came marching home." 

W. S. Kenworthy, then a young man, and a very young 
man at that, was selected to make an address of welcome 
to the "boys in blue." They were generally still wear- 
ing their old uniforms and were gradually substituting 
their citizens' clothes again. 

The sorrow for those who did not return was for the 
time almost forgotten in the rejoicing over those who 
were back again to go to war no more. It was a fitting 
place to hold such a celebration and reunion, for it was 
in this very park that so many of those men had volun- 
teered to go to the front. With fife and drum and stir- 
ring speeches the echoes rung through the trees that yet 
were young. 

Here they drilled; here they bade good-bye to fathers 
and mothers, to sisters and sweethearts, and marched 
away, many of them to return no more. 

It was in this same park that the Wide Awakes and 
Douglas Guards marched and counter-marched in the 
stirring political campaign of 1860. Captain McMullin, 
afterwards of the Seventh Iowa, and Captain Fred Pal- 
mer, afterwards of the Eighth Iowa, commanded the 
opposing campaign organizations. McMullin was des- 
tined to receive a severe wound at Corinth and Palmer 



348 MAJOR JOHN F. LACEY 

to lose his arm at Shiloh. The peaceful tactics of 1860 
were the training school for 1861. 

It was in this square in 1853 that an important event to 
the boys old and young occurred. Yankee Robinson ex- 
hibited the first circus that had ever been in the city. 
William T. Smith was the mayor of the city and in the 
goodness of his heart took little Jimmie Edmundson to 
the show — a benefaction that Mr. Edmundson did not 
forget in Mr. Smith's old age. 

Let me call your attention to the buried treasure that 
lies under the bandstand. In the search for water the 
city council turned from the rivers as being too far away 
and sought a supply by a deep well. Two wells were 
bored — a broken drill having stopped work in one, and 
the other was driven 2,750 feet towards the earth's center. 
An inexhaustible supply of strong mineral water rose to 
within eighty feet of the surface and twenty-four hours' 
pumping made no impression upon it. I venture to 
prophesy that the day will come when this water will be 
pumped by electric power and used in baths and drinking 
for the healing of the sick from all nations. 

This well cost $27,500, and the city bonds for it have 
been renewed from time to time and are still unpaid. 

On these two days of Harvest Home and Old Settlers' 
Reunion festival, celebrating the prosperity of our county 
and the abounding crops with which the Father of All has 
so greatly blessed us, we will dedicate our new and beau- 
tiful city hall, the bandstand and other park improve- 
ments, the Maine relics, and the beautiful fountain which 
for all time to come will keep in mind the good name and 
good deeds of Sam Baldauf, the generous man whose 
name is inscribed upon it. 

Public spirit has always characterized the citizens of 
our city and many a harvest home festival and dedication 



ADDRESSES OF MAJOR LACEY 349 

of other memorials from our citizens still remain in store 
for generations yet to come. 

And let us here dedicate ourselves to the upbuilding of 
our city, our county, our state, and the Union of the 
states. 



PENN DAY l 

Penn Colloge has its colors, old gold and blue, but it is 
loyal above all things to the colors of the great republic, 
which are unfurled upon this campus today. 

Penn Day is the great anniversary to which Penn stu- 
dents of the present and the past turn with pleasure and 
pride. The day of the small college has again come, and 
it is to schools of this class that the student may come 
with the hope of daily instructions from its teachers. In 
the great colleges of the day, with their thousands of pu- 
pils, not even a speaking acquaintance is kept up between 
the ordinary student and the higher members of the fac- 
ulty. 

It is true that a widened horizon attends the advance- 
ment from one institution to another. Charles Foster 
Smith says that when he was at Wofford he hailed from 
the high school of Spartanville ; when he went to Har- 
vard he hailed from Wofford, and when he went to Oxford 
he hailed from the United States of America. 

Every college furnishes the pupil with the weapons for 
the battle of life ; the pupil must grind them himself, but 
it helps him to have the teacher not too far away. The 
student following the trail must keep his eyes close to the 
ground that no detail may escape him, even though the 
trail be dim and it is difficult to see the goal that ulti- 
mately will be reached. In after years when you rise to 
look back over the way that has been passed, the eye fol- 
lows it readily till lost in the far distance; each dimly 

i Address given by Major John F. Lacey at Oskaloosa, Iowa, October 
14, 1909. 



ADDRESSES OF MAJOR LACEY 351 

suggested clue in the future becomes a beaten pathway 
when it has been passed over. 

The flag you raise today was adopted by the Conti- 
nental Congress June 14, 1777; it then consisted of thir- 
teen stars and thirteen stripes. On April 4, 1818, the 
flag was changed so as to bear one star for each state and 
thirteen stripes for the original colonies. The flag used 
in its present form has existed without change, except the 
addition of stars for the new states, nearly one hundred 
years. It is already ancient. It is older than the pres- 
ent flag of France, Spain, England, or Germany. 

William Penn went to prison rather than doff his hat to 
a mortal man, but if he were here today he would take it 
off to this old flag, for it represents ideas, principles, and 
purposes and not mere rank between man and man. It 
was planted on the Antarctic continent, in the far south ; 
it was carried by Stanley to Central Africa in his search 
for Livingstone, and I confidently believe that in the last 
two years it has been twice planted on the north pole. 

Just across the street from your college campus lives 
Albert Cooper, a Quaker soldier of the Civil War. At 
the battle of Helena, July 4, 1863, one of the stars was 
shot from the flag of the old Thirty-third Iowa. Mr. 
Cooper picked it up and put it in his pocketbook and car- 
ried it until the close of the war. It now hangs framed 
in his parlor as a precious relic of the past. The flag we 
honor here today is not the flag of war; it is the flag of 
peace. I doubt if in any future war flags will be carried 
by any of the troops in battle. They are too good a mark 
for the deadly weapons of the present day. 

A hundred years ago the ambitious student expressed 
his regret that practically everything had been done and 
that everything that could be discovered had been found 
out. Penn College is a new institution; it is not many 
years old, but within its brief history the wireless tele- 



352 MAJOR JOHN F. LACEY 

graph has been discovered, the gas motor has been in- 
vented, which has caused an entire revolution in our ways 
of life. The dream of the ancients who tried to invent 
the flying machine has been realized, merely because a 
gasoline motor has been discovered ; the automobile from 
a useless toy has become a practical part of everyday 
life ; the X-ray, the most remarkable discovery of the last 
thousand years, is one of the newest discoveries in the 
brief life of Penn College. Halley's comet, before it be- 
came visible through the strongest telescope, was made 
known by photography. Photography in the heavens 
gathers together rays that are invisible by reason of 
their lack of continuity, and when thus gathered become 
visible in their collected form. Who knows but that the 
rays from the moon and the planets may yet be concen- 
trated in a similar manner so as to photograph the things 
in these distant wandering orbs that otherwise cannot be 
seen? And last, but not least, the north pole has been 
twice discovered and the American flag planted at the 
apex of the globe. Cook's tourists will soon be outing 
there in the height of summer. 

The most common complaint of today is that every- 
thing worth while has been done ; that there are no more 
worlds to conquer or discover. Ben King, poor fellow, 
who died too young, in a very droll way voices this senti- 
ment in his poem, ' ' Jane Jones ' ' : 

Jane Jones keeps talkin ' to me all the time, 

And says you must make it a rule 
To study your lessons 'nd work hard 'nd learn, 

An' never be absent from school. 
Kemember the story of Elihu Burrit, 

An' how he clum up to the top, 
Got all the knowledge 'at he ever had 

Down in a blaeksmithing shop? 
Jane Jones she honestly said it was so ! 
Mebbe he did — 
I dunno ! 



ADDRESSES OF MAJOR LACEY 353 

Of course what's a-keepin' me away from the top 
Is not never having no blaeksmithing shop. 

She said 'at Ben Franklin was awfully poor, 

But full of ambition and brains; 
An' studied philosophy all his hull life — 

An' see what he got for his pains! 
He brought electricity out of the sky, 

With a kite an' a bottle an' key, 
An' we're owin' him more'n anyone else, 

For all the bright lights 'at we see. 
Jane Jones she honestly said it was so ! 
Mebbe he did — 
I dunno! 

0' course what's allers been hinderin' me 
Is not havin ' any kite, lightning, or key. 

Jane Jones said Abe Lincoln had no books at all, 

An ' used to split rails when a boy ; 
An' General Grant was a tanner by trade, 

An' lived 'way out in Ill'nois. 
So when the great war in the South broke out 

He stood on the side o' right, 
An ' when Lincoln called him to take charge o ' things, 

He won nearly every blamed fight. 
Jane Jones she honestly said it was so ! 
Mebbe he did — 
/ dunno! 

Still I ain 't to blame, not by a big sight, 
For I ain't never had any battle to fight. 

She said 'at Columbus was out at the knees, 

When he first thought up his big scheme, 
An' told all the Spaniards 'nd Italians, too, 

An' all of 'em said 'twas a dream. 
But Queen Isabella jest listened to him, 

An' pawned all her jewels o' worth, 
An ' bought him the Santa Maria 'nd said : 

' ' Go hunt up the rest o ' the earth ! ' ' 



354 MAJOR JOHN F. LACEY 

Jane Jones she honestly said it was so ! 
Mehbe he did — 
I dunno ! 
' course that may be, but then you must allow 
They ain't no land to discover jest now. 

Discoveries are new, but ideas are old. Scipio, B. C. 
202, turned the tide on Hannibal by carrying the war into 
Africa. This was not new. A hundred years before 
that Agathocles, the Greek, in a like manner saved Syra- 
cuse by carrying the war into Africa. Cortez, in 1513, 
landed on the coast of Mexico and placed himself in a 
position where he must succeed by burning his ships ; the 
same Agathocles burned his ships on the coast of Africa 
1700 years before. Physical discoveries are new; ideas 
are old. 

William Penn's colony was founded upon the doctrines 
of peace. Abbe Raynal (in his history of the Indies) 
says : "Pensylvania is defended on the east by the ocean, 
on the north by New York and New Jersey, on the south 
by Virginia and Maryland, on the west by the Indians; 
on all sides by its friends; and within by the virtue of 
its inhabitants. ' ' You will observe that he says that it is 
defended both within and without, but it took the of- 
fensive nowhere and in no direction. 

It is not well known, but it is nevertheless true that the 
first written constitution ever framed was prepared by 
William Penn for his new colony; a colony founded on 
peace and just dealings to all. The doctrine of peace on 
earth and good mil to all men is one of the first prin- 
ciples taught in this school. While West Point and 
Annapolis turn out soldiers and. sailors, Penn College is 
turning out apostles of peace. 

Penn College has already been heard from in distant 
places, at home and abroad; your president, Mr. Rosen- 
berger, will soon be a reminder of this institution at 



ADDRESSES OF MAJOR LACEY 355 

Jerusalem and the Holy Land. In Boston your former 
president, Benjamin F. Trueblood, stands at the head of 
the American Peace Society; and war has become so 
deadly and expensive that the nations are most inclined 
to listen to the advance of peace, since it costs $10,000,000 
to build a dreadnaught and $10,000 to fire a single broad- 
side from its deadly and far-reaching guns, and the broad- 
sides can be fired so rapidly that the treasures of Croesus 
would not suffice for a battle between two great ships of 
this type. 

The race between Great Britain and Germany as to 
which shall build the most battleships is going on apace. 
The taxpayer shudders and the governments look upon 
each other's preparations as so dangerous that they fear 
the explosion that will follow the outbreak of hostilities. 
The pocketbooks of the nations are growing sensitive, 
and if w T ar is full of glory it is too costly to indulge in. 

The Geneva award prevented war between Great Brit- 
ain and the United States after the Civil War. It set an 
example out of which has grown The Hague tribunal. 
Everyone looks forward to the arrival of the time when 
controversies between nations will be settled by inter- 
national arbitration. 

My young friends, I congratulate you in being in a 
good school, with competent and able teachers, but, after 
all, you must work out your own success. No college 
could have taught Burns to write "The Cotter's Saturday 
Night"; no university could have taught Shakespeare to 
write "Hamlet"; you must study and create for your- 
selves. "We are all poor, blind mortals and the moun- 
tains are the raised letters to teach the mysteries of the 
earth. The college only gives you the key with which to 
unlock the future. Ticknor, speaking of Daniel Webster, 
said that no great man has ever accomplished anything 
without preparation; that when the time comes to act, 



356 MAJOR JOHN F. LACEY 

the statesman or the orator merely shows what has been 
laid up in the preparation of the past. Importunities 
hasten opportunities; inspiration and suggestion go hand 
in hand, but after all, no preparation is ever lost. The 
training of the mind even in languages and sciences that 
you may never use, fits it for other successful efforts, and 
the colleges that are spoken of sometimes as learned seats 
of athletic exercise fit the body for the struggle of the 
future. 

Penn Day has come and will annually recur ; we all look 
forward with pleasant anticipation to the continued suc- 
cess of this institution, which today raises the flag of the 
United States upon its campus. 



RIVER AND HARBOR IMPROVEMENTS » 

I live in and have the honor to represent a congres- 
sional district about the size of Delaware, that does not 
have a yard of navigable water in it. It is covered with 
the richest soil on the face of the earth and, in fact, if it 
were proposed to dig a canal through that district as wide 
and as deep as the one proposed by you, the people would 
hesitate about spoiling so much good land. At a banquet 
a few years ago in the little city of Pella, a gentleman 
was called upon to give a toast to the town. He said, 
' 'Here's to Pella; she spoils a good farm." 

Gentlemen, you must remember that the edge of any- 
thing is only valuable when it is the edge. What makes 
Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York, and Wilmington im- 
portant is the fact that they are upon the edge of the 
great West. Two hundred years ago my paternal an- 
cestor settled on Indian Creek, down in the lower corner, 
the jumping-off place in Delaware, and I have always 
felt an interest in Delaware ever since I heard its name. 
Now, this enterprise that you are interested in is valu- 
able because of the great country in the rear which has, 
through these channels, an opening to the outside world, 
and here you will stand and take toll as our products 
come and go. Down at Norfolk they are planning for a 
great exposition to commemorate the settlement of 
Jamestown, which was the greatest event that has oc- 
curred since the birth of our Savior. There it was that 
the first commonwealth was founded. There it was that 



i Speech by Hon. John F. Lacey, of Iowa, at Board of Trade banquet, 
Wilmington, Delaware, January 9, 1904. 



358 MAJOR JOHN F. LACEY 

the germ was planted from which has grown this wonder- 
ful combination of commonwealths known as the Ameri- 
can Republic. That is the great historic center of 
America. Wilmington is the explosive center, and I 
have been told, and I thought, till I heard Mr. Charles 
Emery Smith's speech tonight, that solemn old Phila- 
delphia is the center of gravity. I shall take that back, it 
is the center of wit, humor, and of logic as well. The 
center of agriculture of this country is Iowa. That is no 
laughing matter either. 

I remember, Mr. ex-Postmaster General, that when you 
had an exposition in Philadelphia in 1876, Iowa was 
called upon to make an exhibit there, and the best ex- 
hibit we made in that city was a collection of thirty or 
forty glass jars, higher than I could reach and about a 
foot in diameter, each filled with a section of Iowa soil, 
just as it came ; so the people of this country could look 
on it and see what soil is like that needs no fertilizer. 
That same exhibit was taken to the Chicago Exposition 
and set up there. There was nothing better that we 
could send, although we did many other good things. 
One day a careless fellow was wheeling a truck around 
among those glass jars. He struck one of them, broke it 
and scattered the precious soil around for ten or fifteen 
feet. After a few minutes a New England gentleman 
came by with his daughter. She held up her skirts and 
started to walk through that dirt but the old gentleman 
said, "Mary, Mary, don't step in that; that is Iowa soil; 
it will make your feet grow. ' ' 

I am reminded tonight that we often gain by looking 
backward. The first invention of steam traction was what 
is now known as the automobile, then called a road en- 
gine. That preceded the railroad, and Leitch Ritchie, in 
one of his books, learnedly discussed the problem as to 
whether a railroad that was then being projected from 



ADDRESSES OF MAJOR LACEY 359 

Havre to Paris, was practicable. He said that it was not. 
It might, he said, be used on level ground, but what if you 
struck a grade? Then you would need cogs on the 
wheels so they would not slip. He decided that the rail- 
road was not a good means of traffic, but that the road 
engine was. Sixty years have passed by, and the road en- 
gine, now known as the automobile, has come to stay. 
The velocipede was invented, tried and used for many 
years, then discarded. Someone invented the improved 
rubber tire, and now the velocipede, known as the bi- 
cycle, is seen every day upon our streets. It is a common 
vehicle. 

We have covered the land with railroads, and we are 
supplementing them with canals, to be used not as the 
rivals of railroads, but to strengthen them and build up 
their business. Many of you, no doubt, have looked 
through the great telescopes at our universities, and seen 
what astronomers tell us are canals upon Mars. Mars 
is probably older than the earth, and they have their 
canals completed. We are going back once more to canals. 
The canal at Suez today is a revival of one built many 
ages ago, which had been filled up with sand. Renewed 
in our day, it has become a highway for the nation, revo- 
lutionizing the whole East and bringing it to the doors of 
Europe. 

I suppose your idea in inviting some of us gentlemen 
here tonight was very similar to that which our -wives 
recognize as one of the principles of good policy, and 
that is when they introduce a bill from their committee 
on appropriations, they call it up immediately after din- 
ner, in order to secure its passage. I know that my wife 
selects that occasion as the most fitting one, and you 
gentlemen have shown your wisdom by inviting a number 
of us here to listen to the eloquent addresses we have 
heard tonight, and with all the good cheer, sound logic, 



360 MAJOR JOHN F. LACEY 

history, wit, and humor, preparing us for voting to grant 
your appropriation. 

As I told you, my state has no interest in a river and 
harbor bill, and yet I never voted against one, because I 
recognize the fact that these harbors, rivers, canals, light 
houses, and various other improvements upon our coasts 
are simply the means of conveying our excess products 
out of the country. They are the outposts of that great 
center, the Mississippi Valley, which is in the future to 
dominate this country. I speak not in a political sense. 
There is the center; and when Thomas H. Benton, in the 
Senate, turned his face to the West and pointed, saying, 
"There is the East; there lies India," he spoke in pro- 
phetic tones. Upon the pedestal of his statue, which 
stands near the grounds of the great Exposition, which 
you will all visit in the West this year, is inscribed that 
immortal sentence. 

But, gentlemen, I will not detain you longer at this late 
hour. Some of these other men will tell you how they 
will vote. I tell you how I feel, and you will have to in- 
fer how I will vote. 



ON STOCK EXCHANGES ' 

There have been disgraceful chapters of legislation in 
which men in public life have sought pecuniary advan- 
tage for themselves or their friends. Out of these things 
the idea has become current that a position in Congress 
is an exceptionally favorable one from which to deal upon 
the stock exchange, and the inquiry in your letter to me 
expresses this common idea. 

Nothing is more exaggerated than the supposed con- 
nection of members of Congress with speculation of this 
character. When a man does anything wrong he com- 
monly suffers for it in this world. Now and then a skill- 
ful stock gambler comes to Congress, but not often. 
There is excitement enough in their ordinary business to 
keep such men employed without going into politics. But 
the senator or representative who dabbles in the stocks 
receives his ample and merited punishment. In ordinary 
gambling the gamester has the satisfaction of knowing 

i Mr. Lacey 's reply to a letter sent out by J. B. Walker, editor of the 
Cosmopolitan magazine, to a number of members of the House and Senate. 
Mr. Laeey was then a candidate for Congress in the Sixth Iowa district. 
The letter which was sent by Mr. Walker was as follows: 

The Cosmopolitan Magazine, Editorial Department, 

Irvington, N. Y., April 16, 1898. 

Dear Sir: The influence exercised by national legislation on stock ex- 
change values is now so well understood that the time seems to have ar- 
rived when the legislature may no longer indulge in the speculative buying 
of stocks without either a committing of crime against the people or verging 
so closely upon crime that it becomes difficult to discover the dividing line. 
Believing that you will gladly aid in establishing the ethics of a question 
having so vital an interest for the country, I would ask the favor of an early 
reply covering the opinions held by you on this subject. 

Yours sincerely, John Brisben Walker. 



362 MAJOR JOHN F. LACEY 

that be or the man he is playing with will win, but it is 
not so with the stock gambler who, from a distance, 
trades in "the Street." He is sure to come out on the 
wrong side with unerring accuracy. If he loses then he 
loses, and that is the end of the matter. When Henry 
Clay's wife was asked if it did not make her feel badly to 
have Mr. Clay play poker she said: "Oh, no! Mr. Clay 
almost always wins." But the man who at long range at- 
tempts to play with the Board of Trade tiger always 
meets his Waterloo. 

You ask me about the "ethics of a legislator's buying 
and selling stocks." The ethics of a legislator's going 
into speculation of this kind is the same as that which ap- 
plies to the bank cashier or Sunday-school superintendent 
who undertakes the same thing. 

You assume that the congressman who speculates in 
stocks is a designing and wicked person. It would gen- 
erally be more appropriate to call him ' ' a sucker. ' ' I be- 
lieve it was Josh Billings who sagely remarked that when 
a man makes up his mind to be a rascal he had better have 
a civil service examination of himself to see if he is not 
better constructed for a fool. The congressional specu- 
lator in stocks is entitled more to our sympathy than to 
our condemnation, for he is a man of many sorrows and 
acquainted with grief. 

There are a few remarkably shrewd, keen-witted men 
in public office who have by such speculation while in of- 
fice made fortunes, but they are extremely rare. Nearly 
every man who has been fortunate in such ventures has 
graduated in that school before entering either the Senate 
or the House. Of course it is morally wrong for any mem- 
ber of Congress to indulge in speculation based upon his 
knowledge or opinion as to legislation in which he is con- 
cerned. But the political speculator is almost certain to 
mistake the financial effect of such enactments. He is a 



ADDRESSES OF MAJOR LACEY 363 

much better judge of men than of markets. The gentle 
Israelite is sure to take the correct view of the effects of 
an act of Congress upon the markets. He has a sort of 
sixth sense that leads him unerringly to a right judgment 
in these things. The man who is actually turning the 
grindstone cannot see into it any farther than anyone 
else, and the legislator seldom correctly gauges the ef- 
fects of his acts upon the price of stocks. We had a prac- 
tical illustration of this fact when the Sherman law was 
passed in 1890. There probably never was an act of Con- 
gress that led so many legislators into speculation as this. 
When the law was passed many members of Congress 
backed up their judgment by buying silver bullion. For 
a short time they were rewarded for their faith in the ad- 
vance in that commodity by some substantial profits, and 
then the tide turned and these lambs were shorn, not only 
of all their newly acquired fleece, but of the older wool as 
well. 

It is always wrong to do wrong. It is wrong for a 
legislator to attempt to make money by speculation based 
upon his knowledge of prospective legislation. It is grat- 
ifying to know that he does not often need to be punished 
for his offense by the people. Wall Street almost invari- 
ably makes the punishment fit the crime. A member of 
Congress has no peculiar knowledge of the fact that a bill 
is about to pass which would influence the markets, that 
is not open to all men alike. Our system of government 
precludes this, for the bill must go through committees 
in two houses and be approved by the president, and its 
effects are always discussed by the outside public, who 
are as well advised as any member of Congress can pos- 
sibly be. 

Nothing is more common than for congressmen to ask 
the views of bright newspaper men as to the probability 
of a bill's securing a majority of the two houses. Their 



364 MAJOR JOHN F. LACEY 

point of view is very often much better than that of men 
actually engaged in the work of legislation. 

There is no surer cure for the evil than that which the 
legislator's own act imposes. The legislator who goes 
into the stock market soon becomes a sadder and wiser 
man. 



ALASKA 

By Major John F. Lacey 

A land of contradictions and surprise ; 
A land of dayless nights and nightless days ; 
Land of the midnight sun and midday stars ; 
A land of distance and immensity : 
The sun goes down and yet it is not night ; 
The light still lingers in the rosy North ; 
Or in the winter's dark the broad faced moon 
And flaming lights join with the radiant stars 
To light the snowy landscape like the day ; 
Alaska. 

Her gateway, grand, unequaled and superb, 
Inviting Nature's lover to behold 
Her wondrous beauty and sublimity ; 
From Ketchikan to frigid Kougorok, 
Where glaciers, like frozen waterfalls, 
Their sources hid among the cloudy mists, 
Drop icebergs green and blue, or snowy white, 
Into the stillness of the icy sea; 
Alaska. 

A thousand miles through inland lakes and sounds, 
Amid the ancient mountains clad with snows ; 
To the great pass by Skagway's rugged shore; 
Geneva, Como, Lomond, and Lucerne, 
Champlain and George, the Hudson and the Alps 
All rolled in one, a thousand miles in length ; 
By Bennett and La Barge's deep blue lakes; 
By rushing Whitehorse Rapids' foaming stream; 



366 MAJOR JOHN F. LACEY 

To Yukon's tawny flood which ever pours 
Its rushing waters in the Bering Sea; 
And flowing over sands beflecked with gold, 
Forever glides the limpid Tanana 
Into the turbid Yukon vast and wide ; 
Alaska. 

The misty Nunivak, the seaman's dread; 
The quaggy tundra gleaming bright with flowers, 
Reeking with moisture from its icy bed ; 
The placid lakes in solitude profound ; 
The distant streams where salmon crowd to spawn, 
To die and whiten shores with glistening bones ; 
McKinley's mount, whose peak no man has trod 
And Saint Elias ever cold and white ; 
Rich, solitary, grand and yet severe ; 
But still she is alluring to the brave, 
Her coffers open to no timid hand ; 
Alaska. 



HARVEST FESTIVAL ADDRESS ! 

All of the people of the Old World look back to the 
origin of their race in the mists and marvels of great an- 
tiquity. Gods and goddesses were concerned in their be- 
ginning and the supernatural was freely appealed to. 

But here in Iowa we have a great commonwealth whose 
beginnings are in the memory of living men and women 
who are still young enough to remember well. 

An audience like that which faces me today shows that 
Iowa is certainly not decreasing in population, the evi- 
dence of the census taken to the contrary notwithstand- 
ing. But if we have lost some in numbers merely, the 
quality has not deteriorated. 

Iowa in 1860 had only 764,913 people but in 1861 she 
began to send them to the war and more than 80,000 of 
her sons bore arms to the nation's defense. 

We should be more concerned in the character of our 
citizenship than in any question of mere numbers. There 
were 20,000 Athenian citizens capable of bearing arms in 
the days of Miltiades and to them we owe the victory of 
Marathon which saved the Greek citizenship which has 
molded the history of Europe and America, and the influ- 
ence of their courage and intelligence still bears fruit 
after twenty-three hundred years. 

There were still 20,000 Athenians capable of bearing 
arms in the days of Demetrius Phalereus. But they were 
the degenerate sons of noble sires. 

i Delivered at the Iowa State College, Ames, September 29, 1905, ante- 
dating his death, as Mrs. Bernice Lacey Sawyer writes, by eight years, 
almost to the hour. He spoke for an hour entirely from notes which, with 
the following extracts, were kept with the program, thus bearing testimony 
to the methodic habits of Major Laeey. 



368 MAJOR JOHN F. LACEY 

In the days of good Queen Elizabeth, her entire revenue 
was only $4,000,000 ; and the great Philip, King of Spain, 
the ruler of the greatest and wealthiest monarchy of his 
day, had an annual revenue of $20,000,000. 

Our commonwealth believes in education. The ex- 
penses of the Iowa public school system as reported in 
the census of 1900 was $10,248,989, and the money in- 
vested in school houses was $20,389,505. 

So Iowa spends for her school system a sum more than 
double the revenues of Queen Elizabeth. 

The character of our citizenship is made in the home, 
the church, and the school. 

To keep the water supply of a city clean is the first re- 
quirement to preserve the public health. 

To elevate and purify the sources of our citizenship 
should be the first object of our people. 

The forty-five years that have passed since 1860 have 
been more fruitful of results than any like period in the 
world's history. 

The entire cost of operating the government of the 
United States for the year 1860 was $77,462,102. 

This would only have paid one-half of last year's pen- 
sion roll. 

This is a striking illustration of the magnitude of the 
great conflict that raged from 1861 to 1865. 

But it was worth all that it cost. 

In 1776 we were only 3,000,000 people but were all 
united in the common cause of liberty. 

In 1861 we were 30,000,000 people torn by dissension 
and engaged in the bloodiest civil war ever witnessed. 

In 1905 we were 80,000,000 again united in fraternity 
and loyalty. The wounds of 1861 are all healed and the 
sisterhood of states are vieing with each other in the race 
for advancement. 

Mere wealth is no longer the main object of life, for the 



ADDRESSES OF MAJOR LACEY 369 

richest citizens have learned that human sympathy is 
worth more than money. 

On this beautiful campus I want to have you go back 
with me in your minds and memories to the memorable 
year of 1862. 

This campus was then a waving and fertile prairie. 
Most of the people who hear me were then unborn. 

The youth of our state were marshaling to arms and the 
wives and daughters were holding the plow or driving 
the mower. 

The Confederate army was in sight of Washington and 
Mr. Lincoln could hear the thunder of the hostile guns 
from his bedroom in the White House. It was indeed the 
darkest hour of the Republic. Congress was in session 
devising means to preserve the Union under the darkest 
of adversity. 

They were situated like the Roman Senate when Han- 
nibal was besieging the Eternal City. 

The proudest commendation ever bestowed upon a 
Roman consul was "That he never despaired of the Re- 
public. ' ' 

Hannibal's camp in front of Rome was sold in the 
forum at auction in the darkest hour of the siege and the 
purchaser's title was made good by the future victory. 

On May 20, 1862, the Congress of the United States 
passed the homestead bill opening the public domain to 
the homeless people of the United States. 

On July 1, 1862, they passed a bill for the construction 
of the Pacific railway through the unsettled and hostile 
regions of the Far West. 

Mr. Lincoln was authorized to designate the initial 
point and he selected the western limit of Iowa in the city 
of Council Bluffs. 

On the next day the same Congress, July 2, 1862, 
passed the bill which has brought us together today. 



370 MAJOR JOHN F. LACEY 

They passed the bill to grant a portion of the public 
lands to found the agricultural colleges, and this great 
institution born amid the shock of battle began its ex- 
istence. 

A vast grant of land was made to found this great 
institution. 

The land was not held by the college as a landlord to 
collect rents from the toiling tenant of future years but 
has passed into the hands of agricultural owners. 

It is dotted with farm houses, barns, and orchards, and 
the sons of those farmers come here to school. 

I have often heard the suggestion that it was a great 
mistake to sell the school and college lands. But it was 
a wise act. The state does not have the title but the land 
and the farmers on the land are the great asset of the 
state. It is better to have tax payers than state tenantry. 

The people should take care of the government and 
not the government take care of the people. 

The ownership of the soil should be in the tillers of 
the soil, and to the wide distribution of our farming lands 
among the people is to be attributed much that is good in 
our state. 

We are fortunate in having no great cities with their 
social problems in our state. With more than two and 
a quarter million of population our largest city has only 
seventy-five thousand souls. 

From this vantage ground we have an ideal common- 
wealth. 

Iowa is the very center of fertility. Go in what direc- 
tion you may and the best land in each of our neighboring 
states is next to Iowa. 

With fertile land, farms not too large, a healthful 
though severe climate, splendid schools and clean govern- 
ment Iowa has a future for us to look forward to with 
confidence as well as hope. 



LETTER FROM COLONEL A. W. SWALM TO 
MR. AND MRS. SAWYER 

Southampton, England, October 1, 1913 
Dear Carroll and Berenice: As sudden as death in 
battle came the fell news of the taking away of Major 
Lacey — to our complete consternation, and the deepest 
regret. I had just come up from town at a Church Con- 
gress meeting — and was telling Mrs. Swalm of the big 
men seen and heard in a great meeting of 3,000 men, 
when the rap of the postal messenger brought the shadow 
of death into the house by your cable. Yesterday I tried 
to express to you our sorrow, and the day and night were 
sad indeed. For so much of our life had been wound 
up with his; mine from 1855 by passing acquaintance — 
and you know all the rest of it ! 

Yesterday morning I had two letters from him, giving 
all the details of the 33d reunion, with a copy of the pro- 
gramme containing his notes as chairman, and a com- 
pany badge for me in one letter, and the second giving 
personal particulars of the family, of Nellie being there, 
and the Schee present — and coupling so much tender- 
ness about some of the boys who had not been present 
at the meeting, and about his going to Des Moines to 
appear at the Supreme Court in a case, and coming back 
the same afternoon. We fear that he had been running 
the machine at too great a speed for his age — and that 
the result was a break on vital lines. 

But — so ends the career of a greatly useful citizen — 
one who did not spare himself in that common service, 
and whose service as time goes will loom up in its real 
value and its benefit alike to state and nation. 



372 MAJOR JOHN F. LACEY 

The old town without Major Lacey will be very strange. 
It will have lost a potent force; an individuality of the 
rugged sort — worthy of the line and the life that gave 
him to the community. 

We are all anxious to hear full particulars — but mean- 
while the memory of the past of this brave man will only 
grow the brighter as time shall whirl us all on to our own 
appointed end. God comfort you all, and bear our love 
to Nellie and the dear mother whose partner for nearly a 
half century has gone to join those sleeping out in Forest 
Cemetery. Affectionately and sincerely, 

Albert W. Swal,m. 



LETTER FROM GENERAL JAMES RUSH LINCOLN 

AN EX-CONFEDERATE OFFICER X 

I desire to call attention to a characteristic of Major 
Lacey that circumstances made me appreciate, more than 
it would others, and that was the manliness and nobility 
of his actions in the treatment of those who were in the 
ranks of his foes in the "War of the Rebellion. 

I first met him as an ex-Confederate soldier and from 
that first meeting was impressed with the friendliness and 
broad-mindedness of the man, who I knew must have 
been a brave soldier. 

I was impressed with his modest manner, he never as- 
suming to have performed great or meritorious deeds, 
but telling of his experiences as if a humble comrade of 
the members of the organization with which he served. 

To one who knew Major Lacey it would be unneces- 
sary to look up his service in the official records, for the 
man showed what manner of soldier he had been. 

I was proud of the friendly recognition I received at 
his hands, but still prouder of the treatment he advised 
others to extend to me, and though I never knew of this 
by any word of his, I knew from others of these many 
acts of sympathy, I could not fail to have an affection for 
such a man, and in him realize that a big, warm heart 
was one of the great factors that made him the success 
he had been. 



1 The magnanimous spirit of Major Lacey was shown in some of his ad- 
dresses to old soldiers. I believe it is appropriate therefore to include a 
letter containing a beautiful tribute by an ex-Confederate officer, General 
James Rush Lincoln. — L. H. Pa"mmel. 



374 MAJOR JOHN F. LACEY 

Another ex-Confederate, who died in Iowa, would glad- 
ly bear the same testimony of the gallant soldier and 
Christian gentleman, and I have no doubt that when he 
crossed over the divide, in the ranks of those who wel- 
comed him stood some who once wore the gray. 

Respectfully, 

James Rush Lincoln. 



EXCERPTS FROM THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 
JOHN F. LACEY 



EXCERPTS FROM THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 
JOHN F. LACEY l 

Compiled by Miss Harriette S. Kellogg 

To Eleanor Lacey Brewster and Berenice Lacey, my 

daughters. 

I have always regretted my inadequate information in 
regard to my ancestors, and would highly prize any bio- 
graphical notes of their lives. This subject is one which 
the young regard as of little importance whilst the 
sources of knowledge are accessible, but as the grave 
closes over our parents and grandparents, and as the 
fountains of knowledge on such subjects have gone dry 
we begin to thirst for information of this character. 

My grandfather Lacey only died in 1870 and I have al- 
ways regretted my failure to see him and make all the en- 
quiries I could as to our family history. 

I write what follows, not for the public, believing that 
you will appreciate it in after years. 

ANCESTRY 

I was born near New Martinsville, Virginia (now West 
Virginia), May 30, 1841. My father was John Mills 
Lacey and my mother was Eleanor Patten Lacey. 

On my mother's side my great-grandfather, William 
Patten, of Berks County, Pennsylvania, was born in 1754. 
William was not born a Quaker but became one. He 
moved to Kentucky and thence to Georgia where my 
grandfather, Isaac Patten, was born. In 1804 my grand- 
father and great-grandfather moved from Georgia to 
Belmont County, Ohio. 

i These excerpts were taken from a manuscript copy of the autobiography 
presented to Mrs. Sawyer by her father June 27, 1901. 



378 MAJOR JOHN F. LACEY 

My grandmother was Eleanor Davis, daughter of Evan 
Davis and Mary Davis. 

Evan Davis I presume to have been of Welsh origin, as 
Pat Murphy is no more Irish than Evan Davis is Welsh. 
A few years ago at Oskaloosa, the Welsh people of Cen- 
tral Iowa held an Eisteddfod and a committee was 
sent to invite me to preside over the meeting. I ac- 
cepted of course, as I always felt honored by any mark of 
appreciation by the Welsh people. Before separating, 
one of the committee said, ' ' Have you any Welsh blood 
in your veins? If so, we would like to tell our people." 
I said, "No; but my mother's grandfather was a Hun- 
garian named Evan Davis. ' ' They replied that that kind 
of a Hungarian would answer their purpose very well, 
and I was accordingly introduced as the presiding officer 
and announced as a descendant of a "distinguished Hun- 
garian named Evan Davis." The little Welshmen all 
saw the point and welcomed me as a brother. 

Isaac Patten left Georgia in the early years of the nine- 
teenth century and settled in Belmont County, Ohio, along 
with other Quakers from Georgia who left that state be- 
cause of the institution of slavery. Isaac Patten was the 
son of Wm. Patten and Rachel his wife. This is as far 
as I have been able to trace my mother's family. They 
were all of English or Welsh stock. 

On the other side my grandfather, John Mills Lacey, 
Sr., was descended from English ancestry whose history 
I can trace back to about the year 1700. Robert Lacey, 
from whom our family descended, came from England to 
Virginia and settled near Norfolk. His sons, Robert and 
John, emigrated to Georgetown, Delaware. John was the 
father of Spencer, who was my great-grandfather. 

My great-grandfather Spencer and his father John 
were both soldiers in the War of the Revolution. John 
was a fifer and Spencer a drummer in Colonel Neill's 



AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF JOHN F. LACEY 379 

regiment of Delaware Militia ; both enlisted October 21, 
1780. This appears from the records of the adjutant- 
general of Delaware at Dover. 

My great-grandfather, Spencer Lacey, died in Dela- 
ware near Georgetown and I was shown the spot where 
the farm burying ground stood on the deserted farm a 
few miles southwest of Georgetown. 

The custom in Delaware was to bury the dead on each 
farm and the state is dotted with these little family bury- 
ing grounds. A giant wild grapevine grows out of the 
center of this little unmarked burial ground and no doubt 
its roots have fed on the remains of our ancestors. 

John M. Lacey, Sr., is buried at Newcomerstown, Ohio, 
and my grandmother, Mary Hurley Clifton Lacey, at 
Cadiz, Ohio. Grandfather Isaac Patten and grandmoth- 
er Eleanor Patten, are buried at Captine, near Patten's 
Mill, a few miles south of Barnesville, Ohio. 

H. B. Patten, of Indianapolis, Ind., writes me that he 
has it from three different sources that grandfather Isaac 
Patten died in Indiana and was buried at Raysville in that 
state. This may be true, as he may have been away from 
home at his death, but I never so understood it. Sister 
May verifies H. B. Patten's statement. 1 

My father, John Mills Lacey, Jr., was born at Barnes- 
ville, Ohio, August 9, 1812, and died of gravel at Oska- 
loosa, Iowa, May 2, 1880. 

My mother, Eleanor Patten Lacey, was born in Bel- 
mont County, Ohio, October 10, 1813, and died from effects 
of a fracture of thigh bone at Sedalia, Missouri, March 
22, 1883. Father and mother are buried at Forest Cem- 
etery at Oskaloosa, Iowa. 

Our stock therefore is English, Scotch-Irish, and Welsh. 
The name of Lacey is Norman, and the first of the name 

i This paragraph occurred later on in the book but it seemed advisable 
to place it here. — Ed. 



380 MAJOR JOHN F. LACEY 

came over with William the Conqueror and some of them 
were very prominent after the conquest. De Lacey was 
the first viceroy of Ireland under William. Lacey built 
Kirkstall Abbey at Leeds, and another Lacey built the 
castle at Chester. The name is not a common one. 

I have found some Laceys in different parts of the 
South and they nearly always trace their ancestry back 
to Virginia, apparently deriving their family name from 
the same stock. 

It is a question much discussed as to whether a man 
partakes more of his ancestry or of his surroundings. 
But whatever I know of my ancestry I will try and faith- 
fully record. ' ' For when the breath of man goeth forth 
he shall turn again to his earth, and then all his thoughts 
perish." 146 Ps. 

A few years ago in searching the records of our family 
at Georgetown, I found the manumission papers filed by 
Spencer Lacey freeing his slaves. This was in the early 
part of the present century. It appears therefore, that 
my grandfather Patten and great-grandfather Lacey 
were both washing their hands of human slavery about the 
same time. 

My mother was born a Quaker ; she lost her birthright 
by marrying my father, who was a Methodist. She joined 
the same church with my father and lived and died in that 
faith. She was persistent in her attendance upon the 
services of that church and was a constant reader during 
her whole life. 

Her last words were, "The Lord will provide." She 
had just been reading the ' ' New version of the New Testa- 
ment" which I had sent her. She rose to walk across the 
room and fell with the unfortunate results I have de- 
scribed. 

The year 1880 was the saddest of my life. In that year, 
May 2d, father died, and October 9th my only son, Ray, 



AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF JOHN F. LACEY 381 

died, and November 2d Marion (Dumpsie) died, both of 
that fell scourge, diphtheria. I have given mother's last 
words; Dumpsie 's were, "Put away all my playthings." 

The dead never grow any older. Ray and Dumpsie will 
always be children to me. "A happy home is the suburbs 
of Heaven" and when these little folks were with us, the 
happiest days of my life were passed. 

Father was a constant reader and though not highly ed- 
ucated had a good common school education. Bishop 
Simpson and Edwin M. Stanton were his schoolmates at 
Cadiz, Ohio, where most of his boyhood was passed. 
Reared a Democrat by his father, he changed his politics 
in 1840 and voted for William Henry Harrison, after 
which he was a consistent Whig protectionist and finally 
a Republican, in which faith he died. 

MY EAELY LIFE 

I first saw light on the banks of the Ohio River, two 
miles above New Martinsville, West Virginia, in a little, 
one-roomed, log cabin, one story high, roofed with clap- 
boards which were held in place by poles. I used to see 
this building in after years up to the time I was twelve 
years old, but it has long since disappeared. Father was 
a bricklayer and plasterer and was gone from home much 
of the time. They used to show me where the chips at the 
woodpile were swept back, leaving a little ridge around 
the house, and old Carlo the faithful watch dog would al- 
low no one to cross that line without consent of my 
mother. 

Father first settled in Woodsfield, Monroe County, 
Ohio, where Mary, Isaac, and James were born. He then 
moved to "Sunfish" or Clarington to join a colony about 
to emigrate to Texas. A party of travelers solicited the 
privilege of staying over night, and unfortunately they 
had some quilts with them in their sleigh which had been 



382 MAJOR JOHN F. LACEY 

contaminated with the small-pox. Father, mother, all the 
children then living, and Uncle Robert took the small-pox, 
and as a result the Texas colony passed by on a steamer 
and left them, so that father emigrated to West Virginia 
instead of Texas. The small-pox left sequences in the 
lungs of my brother James which undoubtedly produced 
consumption while he was a soldier in the Third Iowa In- 
fantry. The course of life of our family was thus 
changed by the accident of contracting small-pox. 

New Martinsville was laid out, and the new county of 
Wetzel created out of a part of Tyler County, and father 
concluded to cast his lot with the new county-seat. He 
purchased lots immediately opposite the court-house and 
here was my first recollection. The beautiful Ohio rolled 
by the town, and those were the days of steamboats, and 
the sight of those craft was one of the most pleasing 
things in my life. 

The flood of 1847 came up four feet in our house, and 
the flood of 1852 came into the second story, driving us 
into the upper story of the court-house which stood on 
higher ground. The floods caused father to sell out and 
remove to Wheeling in 1853 and thence to Iowa. I re- 
member John Morgan, who lived up Fishing Creek, some 
four miles from town. He stopped at my father's on his 
return from Iowa, and his description of the beauty of the 
state and fertility of the soil captured my father's im- 
agination. Said he, ' ' The weeds in Iowa all have beauti- 
ful flowers. The Spanish needle, an ugly weed in Vir- 
ginia, there was a most beautiful flower." He was espe- 
cially in favor of the "divide" between Skunk and Des 
Moines rivers and thought the little town of Oskaloosa 
was full of future good things. This was the first I ever 
heard of Oskaloosa and the name pleased my father and 
in 1855 he started directly for that city by water from 
Wheeling. 



AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF JOHN F. LACEY 383 

At New Martinsville Rev. J. J. Dolliver, father of Con- 
gressman J. P. Dolliver, was a frequent guest at our 
house, for our home always gave good cheer to the Meth- 
odist itinerant preacher. 

There was no church there and Dolliver gave his only 
horse towards the construction of a new building. Father 
did the brick work almost entirely for nothing, and though 
I was only ten years old I did a good part at the carrying 
of bricks. 

There was no public school system in Virginia in those 
days and the people of the village employed teachers on 
subscription. A pockmarked little bachelor Irishman, 
Wm. Macdonnell, was my first teacher. He was a finished 
scholar and he believed it was better to spoil the rod than 
the child. He spoiled a good many rods on me for trivial 
offenses but I loved the old man all the same. 

Robert McEldowey was head boy in the school and I 
looked on him as a sure winner of the presidency in due 
time. He rose to a captaincy in the Confederate army 
and when the Civil War closed returned to the little old 
town where he still remains. 2 

The institution of slavery only existed by tolerance 
along the Ohio, for freedom was in sight on the hills of 
Ohio across the water. I remember once when I was 
playing on the banks of the river, suddenly a negro ap- 
peared running at full speed with the sheriff behind him 
and fifty men following close behind in full hue and cry. 
The negro turned up the bank and ran for liberty as 
though he was running for life. He gained on his pur- 
suers rapidly and finally, dashing over the bank, he 
jumped into a skiff and rowed across the river leaving the 
sheriff and his followers far behind. I drew a long sigh 
of relief as he disappeared in the pawpaw bushes on the 
other shore. That was about the time of the invention of 



2 He died of cancer in 1900. 



384 MAJOR JOHN F. LACEY 

rubber balls, rubber shoes, and other elastic goods. It 
was a matter of common belief among the boys that the 
negro wore gum shoes and that he stepped ten feet at a 
step with the assistance of the elastic soles. We read the 
story of the seven league boots after that with a memory 
recurring to the footrace of that negro for liberty. My 
sympathies were all with the negro in that race. 

The Ohio River flood of 1852 carried off our little 
school-house and the next school was kept in the upper 
story of the jail. The second story was fitted up as a 
debtor's prison and as arrests for debt were very rare the 
rooms were occupied for a school and I therefore did some 
of my earlier studying behind prison bars. 

My little sister, Eliza Adaline, born August 21, 1850, 
died of whooping cough November 23, 1850. With the ex- 
ception of this loss I remember no other sorrow in con- 
nection with New Martinsville. 

I was only twelve years old when we left there, so that 
the associations of that village are full of the pleasure 
that makes the happiest of all creatures the lifetime of a 
boy. The life of a boy is full of interest. As the poet 
Lilly expresses it, "A wren's egg is as full of meat as a 
goose's egg, but there is not as much of it." 

I know that these first twelve years of my life were re- 
plete with abounding health and boyish delights. 

My brothers were Isaac, who was six years older than 
I, James, three years older, and Will, five years younger. 
Isaac was by force of family necessity compelled to learn 
father's trade of brick-mason, stone-mason and plasterer 
as soon as he was old enough and his opportunities for 
education were limited. He soon became a good work- 
man and, if he had a desire for enlarged education, it was 
suppressed by the hard time of his early life. 

James and myself were students from childhood and I 
can recall when my mother pasted a pictured sheet on the 



AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF JOHN F. LACEY 385 

kitchen wall from which I learned my letters and learned 
to read, and I remember my pride when I discovered that 
without teaching at all I was able to read writing or 
script from its resemblance to printing. 

The first book of any size that I ever read was Dau- 
bigne's History of the Reformation, which I read aloud 
to mother while she sewed and patched and darned and 
did the household work for a young and growing family. 

The "Diet at Worms" struck me as very amusing, but 
I became a partisan of Luther in my childhood, and have 
always admired his sturdy independence ever since. 

Fox's Book of Martyrs was a logical sequel to read 
after Daubigne, and I read that cheerful volume at my 
mother's knee also. I commenced to borrow all the books 
in the town, covered each book carefully with paper, read 
it with thumb papers and returned it promptly when read, 
so that there was no one in the village who would not lend 
me any book that I wanted. 

Pinnock's Goldsmith's Roman History I read with the 
same avidity as Jack and the Beanstalk and Jack the 
Giant Killer, and I remember all the details of the work 
as well as I remember all the other things which were im- 
printed on my mind when my memory was as susceptible 
of impressions as the plate of a photographer. But the 
most delightful period of my life was brought to an end. 
Father and Uncle Robert, who had recently married 
Nancy Engle, concluded to remove to Wheeling. 

An auction sale disposed of some of our less movable 
goods, the old home was rented and soon afterwards sold, 
and one day in April, 1853, we took passage on the steam- 
boat Courier for the city of Wheeling, forty miles distant, 
with a feeling that a great journey was being entered 
upon, a journey much more extensive and important it 
seemed, than a subsequent journey across the Atlantic. 
And indeed it was the starting upon a great journey for 



386 MAJOR JOHN F. LACEY 

me, for I then turned my back upon early, joyous, and 
buoyant childhood and entered upon the real struggle of 
preparing for life. 

At "Wheeling we rented a house on Zane Street and for 
the first time I saw a public school. Wheeling, with New 
England enterprise, had inaugurated a most excellent 
school system and James and I entered in the earnest 
work of the school. Isaac worked at his trade in summer 
and attended the Fourth Street Academy in winter, 
whilst Mary spent a year in a girl's seminary. 

My father was industrious and poor, and he and Uncle 
Robert entered upon the work of building at once on our 
arrival. As James and I went up the grimy and sooty 
streets in the morning after our arrival, with clean faces 
and clean shirts and our best clothing, we were astonished 
to find that we attracted a good deal of attention and the 
boys at the alley corners would shout ' ' Country Jake ' ' as 
we passed by. We paid no attention to these taunts and 
kept as close together as a Macedonian phalanx as we 
passed through these new scenes and though some of the 
hoodlums threatened us, they did not attack us. 

We both sought employment carrying newspapers after 
school hours, James getting employment with the Intel- 
ligencer, a Whig paper, and I with the Argus, the Demo- 
cratic organ. We each got the princely sum of fifty cents 
a week, but we got exercise going over our routes at a dog 
trot delivering the papers after school hours, and the 
work built up bone and muscle that many a year after 
were found useful in mature life. 

The fifty cents a week helped to buy school books and 
clothing and we both faithfully performed this work dur- 
ing the two years we lived in Wheeling. In the summer 
vacations we each worked in the printing offices for two 
dollars a week and on New Year's Day sold Carriers' Ad- 
dresses to our patrons. I sold seven dollars' worth the 



AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF JOHN F. LACEY 387 

first New Year 's and twenty-six on the next which showed 
that I had won the approval of the patrons on my route. 
I remember the first paper bank bill I ever owned. I got 
one dollar for two weeks' work. It was on the Northern 
Bank of Kentucky. There was a beautiful landscape on 
this promise to pay, and an apple tree in one corner with 
two apples lying on the ground under the tree. 

When I attempted to use this bill in paying my fare on 
an excursion to Grave Creek I found it was counterfeit, 
and as it was all I had I watched the train pull out with 
much disappointment. On enquiry I found from a mer- 
chant that the bill was a sure enough counterfeit. Said 
he, "Johnny, do you notice the apples lying under that 
tree? Now there are only two apples there. If the bill 
was a good one there would be three apples there. Do 
you think you can remember that? ' ' 

After forty-six years I can answer, "Yes, I think I can 
remember that." In fact I could not forget it if I would 
try. It was my first object lesson in "sound money," and 
I have always been in favor of good money ever since. 
My employer made it good to me, but the loss fell on him 
and I appreciated the magnitude of his loss. 

Father was a man of infinite mechanical capacity. He 
not only knew his own trade but he could mend a clock, 
build a barn, make a basket, cut stone, or do any kind of 
mechanical work to which he cared to turn his hand. He 
was not a jack-at-all-trades but he had a natural facility 
for turning his hand to any kind of work that I have never 
seen equaled. His trade only gave him employment dur- 
ing good weather and he abhorred idleness and spent his 
winters at some kind of indoor work. He cut many grave- 
stones and monuments and his lettering and carving were 
in the best of style. 

My earliest recollection of any particular date is 1844, 
when I was three years old. Father was cutting stone in 



388 MAJOR JOHN F. LACEY 

his shop at New Martinsville. It was a cold day in late 
fall. He had bought me a little plush cap with small red 
spots on it. I tossed it up in the air at his suggestion and 
shouted, ' ' Hurrah for Henry Clay. ' ' The cap at once be- 
came my ' ' Henry Clay cap. ' ' A few days afterwards I 
was parching corn on the top of the little cannon stove in 
the shop when I took this cap and putting it against the 
stove raked the corn into the cap with a small stick. The 
cap caught fire and the whole side was burned out of it. 
My father at once gave me a severe flogging so that the 
circumstance was doubly impressed on my body and 
mind ; and that is why I remember it so well after all these 
years. 

Father, in his winter's work at New Martinsville, had 
prepared a fine freestone monument for his mother, who 
lies buried at Cadiz, Ohio. This monument he took out 
in 1854 to Cadiz to set it up over grandmother's grave. I 
went along with him and took my first long journey from 
home. This monument was long after removed by Uncle 
Robert, with the remains, to the new cemetery at Cadiz 
where it now stands. The small monument at New Mar- 
tinsville over my little sister's grave and the monument 
at Oskaloosa over father's, mother's, and James's graves 
are also the workmanship of my father. 

At Wheeling my father constantly discussed the project 
of going West. Iowa was then attracting much attention 
and one of our New Martinsville friends, John Morgan, 
visited us on his return from the West and spoke of the 
beauties and fertility of the new state. 

In the spring of 1855 we embarked on the Swallow, a 
steamboat, at Wheeling, with passage paid to St. Louis. 
It was a long and interesting journey and the boat was 
loaded with emigrants mainly bound to Missouri, as the 
Virginian generally preferred a slave state. 

We caught a glimpse of New Martinsville as we passed 



AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF JOHN F. LACEY 389 

by there in the night, and stopped for a short time, where 
I saw a few of the boys of my acquaintance. When I next 
saw them it was 1875, and twenty years had elapsed with 
all its vicissitudes. 

At Cincinnati, Ohio, we stopped for two days, which we 
spent diligently seeing the city. Wm. Lacey, son of John 
S. Lacey, of Cadiz, was living there and he visited us. 
He was then in the wholesale grocery business in which 
he made a large fortune but died comparatively young. 

I remember one particular thing at Cincinnati with 
great distinctness. James and I went to see Hiram 
Powers 's "Hell." Before Powers went to Italy 
and carved the Greek Slave, he showed his first skill in 
wax figures, and designed a museum in which he exhibited 
his ideas of what the devil's realm would be. There was 
a clashing of chains, a roaring of furnaces, diabolical 
noises, and a variety of demons and condemned souls that 
I can yet see in my memory. While standing at an iron 
railing looking at the horrible vision, a charge of elec- 
tricity went through the railing throwing us all on our 
knees. A constant stream of visitors was passing through 
the building and the electric shock seemed to be sufficient 
to clear the way for more visitors. 

At Louisville, in going through the canal, we visited the 
Kentucky giant, Porter. He had retired and was keeping 
a public house near the canal. I wonder if he would seem 
as large now, but he was surely a gigantic specimen, even 
for Kentucky. 

At St. Louis we changed boats to the beautiful side- 
wheeler, Thomas Swann, one of the old Wheeling and 
Louisville Line, and she soon took us up to the Gate City 
of Keokuk which was then in the height of its boom 
period. The landing was crowded with people and goods 
and it seemed like all the world was going to Iowa, or 
I-owe-a, as we called it then. 



390 MAJOR JOHN F. LACEY 

There were no railways in the state and we had brought 
our team from Virginia with us and we loaded our goods 
and started for Oskaloosa. The front of the destroyed 
Mormon Temple at Nauvoo rose white and beautiful in 
the distance when we got out on the high prairies north- 
west of Keokuk. 

I was anxious to see a real wild and unbroken prairie 
and soon we began to see them, covered with waving grass 
and flowers. We took our time for the trip and I walked 
nearly all the way full of wonder and delight at every- 
thing that we saw. 

Oskaloosa was a small village when we arrived, having 
less than one thousand people. From the time of our ar- 
rival till the present, Oskaloosa, or the county of Mahas- 
ka, has been my home. 

In the summer of 1855 I helped my father, tending him 
at his work as a mason and plasterer, and learned the 
trade sufficiently during the next few years to be eligible 
to a bricklayers' or plasterers' union. 

In the winter of 1856 James and I attended George W. 
Drake's Academy in the old Normal School Building and 
Will went to the public school. 

In the spring of 1856 father moved out on the Des 
Moines River to the farm that he had purchased there, 
and we at once commenced the active work of making a 
farm. 

The farm was part timber and brush and part prairie, 
so that there was a variety of work. Both game and fish 
were plentiful and the next few years had much of enjoy- 
ment and an unlimited amount of hard work. 

In the winter of 1856 I worked for my board with Judge 
Wm. Loughridge, who was then state senator from Ma- 
haska County, afterward congressman, and I attended 
Professor Johnson's school in the old Normal Building. 

In the summer of 1857 I worked on the farm and with 



AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF JOHN F. LACEY 391 

ray father at the plastering and bricklaying and stone- 
mason trade, and in the winter James and I kept bach- 
elor's hall with George Godfrey in Oskaloosa and attend- 
ed the school of Professor Howe and Professor A. Hull. 
In 1858 I had a repetition of the experience of 1857, but 
spent all my spare time in study and taught school at 
Frits 's school-house in Monroe County during the winter. 
I received $20 a month and board, but boarded around 
with the patrons of the school. This was an interesting 
life, but had many drawbacks. The year 1858 had been 
one of continual rain and the crops were the nearest a 
total failure of anything I have ever seen in Iowa. Cattle 
died of actual starvation and old hay and strawstacks of 
the year before were sold at almost fabulous prices. 

In the winter of 1859 I again taught a winter school at 
Crowell's school-house, not far from the scene of my pre- 
vious experience, and both winters I spent in most de- 
lightful study. Every Friday night both these winters, I 
walked home, nine miles, and there was never a more 
pleasing sight than the light in the window at the old home 
as it appeared in view when I got within two or three 
miles of home. A great log fire in the chimney welcomed 
me, and my father, mother, and such of the children as 
were at home, made these weekly visits sources of the 
greatest pleasure. 

The year 1860 I again worked on the farm and James 
went to Shelby Comity, Missouri, where he taught school. 
In the year 1860 I had my last actual schooling. I board- 
ed with my uncle Robert's family and attended the acad- 
emy of Professor M. A. Robb. The war threatened us all 
winter but I put in the time with extra diligence. I stud- 
ied Latin, mathematics, and many other studies. Being 
alone in nearly all my classes I could take as long lessons 
as I wished and I doubt if any boy of nineteen ever 
studied harder than I. 



392 MAJOR JOHN F. LACEY 

When the spring came I returned to the farm, and one 
day while digging post holes in the Des Moines River bot- 
tom, I heard of the firing on Sumter. Next day, with 
some of my neighbor's big boys, including George God- 
frey, I went to Oskaloosa, to see about enlisting, and we 
joined Captain John H. Warren's company. 

The company was not accepted in the first call, but when 
the second call for three year men came it was accepted 
and became Company H, Third Iowa Infantry. The com- 
pany drilled a few weeks at Oskaloosa and finally left for 
the war on my twentieth birthday, May 30, 1861. At the 
old South Spring Mills we lined up and bade all our 
friends good-bye. Mother kissed James and myself and 
she and father gave us their blessing and we started off 
on the march to Eddyville, and then indeed, for the first 
time I cut loose from all my home moorings and thence- 
forth attempted to direct my life in my own way. 

WITH THE THIRD IOWA INFANTRY 

My connection with the Third Iowa was only from May 
to November 7, 1861, but that service has greatly influ- 
enced the course of my life. 

My brother James was my messmate, also Wm. E. 
Shepherd, who had been a schoolmate and who from Jan- 
uary 1, 1866, to January 1, 1873, was afterwards my law 
partner. 

We organized Mess No. 5, which consisted of James F. 
Lacey, George Godfrey, Jesse McClure, Wm. McClure, 
David McClure, John McClure, Wm. E. Shepherd, John 
W. Mehanna, Richard Campbell, Al Lough and myself. 
Captain John H. Warren messed with us also during the 
time that I remained with the Third Iowa. 

Nearly all of these boys were my neighbors and we had 
been long acquainted. All of them are now dead, except 



AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF JOHN F. LACEY 393 

Jesse McClure, David McClure, Wm. E. Shepherd, John 
H. Warren, and myself. 

The Third Iowa had a hard service, and was literally 
fought out of existence. All that remained of the regi- 
ment after the bloody fight at Atlanta, where General 
McPherson was killed, was consolidated with the Second 
Iowa Infantry. The regiment organized at Keokuk and 
was mustered into the service June 8, 1861. The First 
and Second Iowa Infantry regiments were there at the 
same time. When Stephen A. Douglas died these three 
regiments marched in solemn procession behind a great 
catafalque in which the funeral of the deceased was sym- 
bolized. It was a hot and dusty day and my brother James 
showed much signs of suffering in the march and a few 
days after we marched in review before Major-General 
Samuel R. Curtis and our officers, which kept us at a 
shoulder arms for more than an hour at a time. When 
we broke ranks my brother began to bleed at the lungs, 
and from that hour I think he was doomed to death. It 
was not till February 11, 1862, that the end came. He 
died then at home in father's and mother's arms. 

He and I had been inseparable from my earliest recol- 
lections. We were side by side in the only battle in which 
I fought in the Third Iowa. We campaigned together 
during the summer of 1861 in north Missouri and guarded 
the bridges of the Hannibal and St. Joe Railroad from 
bushwhackers during all the hot weather. On the 4th of 
July we celebrated the day at Utica, Missouri. We spent 
some weeks at Locust Creek bridge and Brookfield. In 
this service I was filled with malaria and on a raid to 
Kirksville I was taken down with chills and fever which 
developed into an every-other-day ague. 

We chased the Confederate, General Tom Harris, and 
his raw levies all around over north Missouri. Under 



394 MAJOR JOHN F. LACEY 

General Pope we marched to Florida, Missouri, for a 
night attack, but the enemy took to the woods, leaving 
their fires burning. While resting in the rebel camp next 
day a squadron of cavalry rode into our camp. We took 
them for Missouri Union Militia, but Colonel Moore, 
afterwards of the Twenty-first Missouri, saw that they 
were rebels who were returning to what they supposed 
was their own camp, and firing at once commenced, lead- 
ing to great excitement. The enemy got away and our 
hard march was in vain. Mark Twain was one of the Con- 
federates under General Harris, and after this expedition 
he concluded to go west and grow up with the country in 
Nevada, where he began his literary career upon a mining 
newspaper. 

Our regiment had a small battle at Hagar 's Woods and 
another at Monroe. I had been left behind on guard at 
Brookfield. James was in these actions, and the first Iowa 
soldier killed in the war, Cyrus B. West of Company H, 
fell at Monroe. The guard was ordered to board a train 
and reenforce the regiment at Shelbina. I was corporal 
of the guard, having been made fourth corporal, and 
James eighth corporal, so that I had a small command of 
twelve men of Company H, under Lieutenant Crossley, 
afterward Lieutenant-Colonel Crossley. We met the regi- 
ment near Shelbina, but the fighting was over and the en- 
emy had retired. 

Colonel U. S. Grant came out to reenforce us with the 
Twenty-first Illinois, and we little thought the history 
that he would make in the next four years. 

In September Colonel Atchison of the Confederate 
army started to Lexington, Missouri, with his new levies 
of troops, and the Sixteenth Illinois and Third Iowa were 
ordered to march after him. We expected to make a 
junction at Liberty, but the Sixteenth Illinois was not on 
time, and after waiting several hours Colonel Scott con- 



AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF JOHN F. LACEY 395 

eluded to follow the enemy and make the attack alone. 
We marched out of Liberty, towards Blue Mills Landing, 
and when we reached the river bottom we found five of 
our Missouri scouts lying dead side by side with their 
hats over their faces. They had been placed in a row by 
the roadside and we marched by with rather unpleasant 
forebodings. 

We had a piece of artillery and a caisson along, and 
they were at the head of the column with a skirmish line 
in front. The dense undergrowth prevented the skir- 
mishers from keeping far enough in advance and we sud- 
denly found ourselves at close range with the enemy, who 
were concealed in a depression of ground, or dry bayou. 

They had squirrel rifles and double-barreled shotguns 
and they enfiladed our men, who were marching by the 
right flank along the road. The artillery horses were soon 
killed and the gunners, after firing two rounds, were 
driven from their guns. The regiment scattered right 
and left in the woods and all fought on their own account 
without much system or order. 

The enemy was in heavy force and well sheltered, and 
after a two hours ' fight a retreat was ordered. Captain 
(afterwards General) Trumbull rushed forward with his 
men and drew off the cannon but the caisson fell into the 
enemy's hands. We lost nearly 100 men killed and wound- 
ed in this our first genuine battle. The excitement of the 
battle caused me to forget my ague and weakness, but 
when the retreat was ordered I stepped out into the road 
and fired a farewell shot into the smoke in the direction 
of the enemy and then started to obey the order to retreat. 
I soon found that I was wholly unable to keep up and was 
ready to drop with sheer exhaustion at any moment. 
Later in the war I would not have thought of starting out 
on a march in my condition of health, but we had not yet 



396 MAJOR JOHN F. LACEY 

been in a hard fight and we would have felt it a disgrace 
to be left behind. 

I saw the enemy were following us at close range and I 
climbed into a cornfield and fell down repeatedly over the 
pumpkin vines and bent cornstalks. Finally I got through 
the field, when I saw that the enemy were far in advance 
of me, marching along the road and following up our regi- 
ment. I concluded to conceal myself in a thicket and try 
to rejoin my regiment at Liberty after dark. 

Suddenly a squad of Rebel cavalry discovered me and 
one shouted, "Here is one of them now." They took my 
gun and my only money, a half dollar, letters from some 
of my friends at home, but worst of all, my box of quinine 
pills. They soon found I was unable to march and brought 
up a horse and put me on it with so much force that I went 
clear over and fell on the ground on the other side. One 
of them said, "Boys, don't you see the fellow is sick?" 
They then helped me on the horse with greater care and 
two of them started back with me towards the river. They 
rode on each side of me, holding my horse's reins, and 
each fondled a double-barreled shotgun loaded with buck- 
shot, the copper caps gleaming maliciously from the nip- 
ples of the guns. We met several heroes in the rear of 
the army as we went back, and two of them wanted to 
show their bravery by shooting the Yankee right there 
and then, but my guards forbade it and said, ' ' Don 't shoot 
a prisoner." 

Arriving at the river, we crossed on the steam ferry- 
boat "Little Blue," a name quite typical of my then con- 
dition. We camped on the south side of the river all night 
and the Rebel forces were ferried across and next morn- 
ing started to join General Price's army which we under- 
stood was besieging Lexington. 

Next day the Third Iowa sent details to visit the field 
and bury our dead, after which they marched to Kansas 



AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF JOHN F. LACEY 397 

City. My fate was unknown for several weeks, but my 
name was published under the word "missing." 

One of my comrades went home on furlough about that 
time and cheered up my sister at Hannibal and the folks 
at home with the statement that the heads of several of 
the dead were eaten off by the hogs and he thought, 
though he was not quite sure, that my body was one of 
those mutilated. It afterwards turned out that this im- 
aginative comrade was at Brookfield during the fight. My 
gun, which fell into the enemy's hands, had my name on 
the strap, and it was a satisfaction to me to know that it 
was afterwards recaptured on the other side of the Mis- 
sissippi by the Fifth Iowa at Iuka. 

Next day we marched towards Lexington. My fever 
raged all day, but I kept going, and every few hundred 
yards we would cross a beautiful stream of spring water. 
I drank all I thought I wanted and when I got into our 
first camp the fever had ceased. 

I shall always remember a jolly fellow named Ben 
Roar, from Quindaro. His father was a hot secessionist 
and had ordered Ben "to go and fight the black aboli- 
tionists." Ben came down to where the prisoners were 
(there were eight of us) and sang songs for our amuse- 
ment. We were in charge of Colonel Green's regiment, 
and Mr. Holloway, one of my guards, afterwards recalled 
these incidents when he was doorkeeper of the committee 
on agriculture of the Fifty-third Congress. 

On the next day, as we approached Lexington, General 
Price rode out to meet us and was received with immense 
enthusiasm. 

"We went into camp at Lexington in a deep ravine near 
where General Mulligan was besieged, and the shot and 
shell from Mulligan's men passed over our heads and 
struck the sides of the hill beyond us. 

An old sergeant-major was very anxious to put the 



398 MAJOR JOHN F. LACEY 

prisoners in the front rank and give us a taste of Mul- 
ligan's fire, but his suggestion did not meet with much 
favor among the Confederates. 

One day the order came for Colonel Green's regiment 
to get ready to take their places behind the hemp bales 
from which the enemy fired on the Union works. They 
all lighted fires and commenced to mold bullets and went 
to the front. One of them was killed that day and several 
wounded, and on their return they were very sullen and 
sad in the evening, and Ben Roar did not come around to 
sing his favorite song about Dives and Lazarus : 

' ' The dogs came along and they licked his sore-um 
Oh, bless God, glory halleloojerum-um 
Oh, Mr. Dog, won 't you lick a little more,-um 
Oh bless God, glory halleloojerum-um." 

How remarkable is the human memory ! How many 
valuable things I have forgotten, and yet this senseless 
jargon of good natured Ben Roar no doubt will stay in 
my remembrance whilst I recollect anything. 

Mulligan surrendered for want of water, and his men 
were paroled and turned loose to march to the Hannibal 
and St. Joe Railway. After they had gone one day the or- 
der came for our little squad, now enlarged to twelve, to 
go to General Price's headquarters. Price was a benevo- 
lent looking gentleman with a combination face, half 
Quaker and half Presbyterian. His cheeks were rosy 
and a pair of little English side-whiskers set off his wholly 
unmilitary looking countenance. 

His adjutant told us to hold up our hands and take the 
oath, "Not to take up arms against the state of Missouri, 
or the Confederate States of America, during the exist- 
ing war unless exchanged," etc. 

We were then turned loose and ferried over the river. 
At Richmond, four miles north, an old judge invited our 



AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF JOHN F. LACEY 399 

party all to drink with him, and a man named Harris, 
whom I would surely like to meet again, asked the judge 
if it would be all right for him to take us home with 
him for the night, as he lived on the road that we in- 
tended to travel. Both the Judge and Mr. Harris 
claimed to be secessionists, and after a conference it was 
determined that we should go on with Mr. Harris. We 
arrived at his house at dark and his family got us all a 
good supper and I was one of the fortunate ones who got 
a bed, and those for whom there were no beds slept in the 
barn. Next morning Mr. Harris gave us our breakfast 
and detailed instructions as to our journey, advising us 
to spend the night with a certain Mr. Green who was, he 
said, a Union man. I have always thought that Mr. 
Harris was on our side though he did not dare let us 
know it. 

At noon we stopped at an old tavern in a cross-roads 
town and got a dinner of salt pork, corn bread, and water, 
for which we were unable to pay, but were told it was 
welcome, and that Mulligan's men had eaten them out so 
that the fare was the best and all that they had. 

At dark we arrived at Mr. Green's. He and his fam- 
ily made us welcome, fed us the best they could, and next 
day hitched up teams to drive us to Hamilton, eighteen 
miles distant on the railroad. As we got to the edge of 
the town a train was just ready to pull out. We shouted 
and the train stopped and waited for us. There were a 
number of soldiers on the train and the old flag was fly- 
ing from it. I never saw that banner look so lovely as it 
did then. I had got heartily tired of the Confederate 
flag and the everlasting jungle of " 'Way Down South 
in Dixie." I never quite overcame my prejudice against 
that tune till in 1898, during the Spanish War, when all 
the old Union tunes and Rebel ones were mixed up by 
the various regimental bands. 



400 MAJOR JOHN F. LACEY 

Fremont's celebrated order, freeing the slaves and or- 
dering all rebels shot who were taken in arms within a 
specified territory, was issued just before the Battle of 
Blue Mills, but I knew nothing of it till the Rebels showed 
us some St. Louis papers with the published order. As 
we were taken prisoners within Fremont's prescribed 
limit it was a game that two could play at. The Rebels 
read it to us and told us that for every Confederate 
prisoner Fremont shot they would shoot ten, and it was 
not very pleasant to be reminded that I was one of ten. 

When we got within the Union lines this order was the 
subject of discussion, and the idea of freeing the slaves 
met with much approval. I took sides against the order, 
and when I pointed out the prisoner-shooting part of it, 
I found that our boys all agreed with me, and when Mr. 
Lincoln revoked the order I think that there were not 
many soldiers who disapproved of his action. 

On arriving at our old camp at Brookfield I found it 
nearly empty. The men had gone from Liberty to Kan- 
sas City and my brother James was with them. 

Orders soon came for us to pack up and go to Quincy, 
Illinois, to recruit and rest. We boarded the cattle cars 
and on arriving at Quincy went into a beautiful camp on 
the bluffs just north of the town overlooking the river. 
In a few days the rest of the regiment rejoined us and we 
spent a few weeks of the greatest enjoyment. The peo- 
ple of Quincy strove to make our stay agreeable. Some 
of our friends from Iowa took the opportunity to visit 
their relatives and the days sped away on swift and joy- 
ous wings. 

President Lincoln refused to exchange prisoners, and 
ordered all on parole to be discharged. Lieutenant-Col- 
onel Scott on November 7th discharged me under this 
order of the President. 

James got a few days furlough and we went home to- 



AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF JOHN F. LACEY 401 

gether and this short furlough was the last of our pleas- 
ant personal associations. 

The day we started home we got the news of Grant's 
battle at Belmont and of the killing and wounding of 
many of my good friends in the Seventh Iowa. 

Thus ended my connections with the old Third Iowa, 
as gallant a body of men as ever shouldered muskets. 
Many of them served in other organizations. Major 
Stone became colonel of the Twenty-second Iowa and gov- 
ernor of Iowa. Scott became colonel of the Thirty-sec- 
ond Iowa; Trumbull colonel of the Ninth Iowa Cavalry 
and then brigadier-general. 

The regiment had a great reputation for its fighting 
qualities and its history would be a record of the war in 
the west and thence with Sherman till the name of the 
regiment was merged in that of the Second Iowa. Tin- 
boys were given to foraging. A story is told which I 
do not vouch for. One day in Mississippi an old planter 
came out to the roadside and complained to General Sher- 
man. Said he, ''Your men have taken my niggers, my 
mules, my turkeys, my chickens, sir, but thank God, sir, 
there is one thing they cannot deprive me of, sir ; I still 
have my hope of Heaven." 

Sherman replied, "Don't be sure about that for the 
Third Iowa Infantry will be along here in a few min- 
utes." 

It was said of the regiment that they could catch a 
hog, skin him and divide him without coming to a halt or 
breaking ranks. 

These stories were fabrications, but the fact remains 
that the old Third Iowa were pretty skillful at foraging. 

I watched the subsequent career of the old regiment 
with great pride. At Shiloh, at the Hatchie, at Vicks- 
burg, on the Atlanta campaign they were always heard 
from in the thickest of the fray. 



402 MAJOR JOHN F. LACEY 

There are but few of them living today, and I have 
always felt sure that but for the accident of my capture 
and discharge I would have died early in the war. But 
I came home in November, 1861, and good home food, a 
good bed, and the frosty Iowa air soon fully restored me 
to health and by early spring no trace of malaria re- 
mained. 

BEADING LAW 

When I came home after my discharge from the Third 
Iowa, I commenced actively to read law. I saw Samuel A. 
Rice, then the leading lawyer at Oskaloosa, and attorney- 
general of the state. He furnished me books and I read at 
home through the winter. He examined me thoroughly 
as to my preparation for the law and I explained to him 
the difficulty encountered in my education. He had 
worked as a pilot on the Ohio to earn money to obtain 
his education and sympathized with my difficulties. He 
asked me if I had read ancient and modern history and 
when he found that I had read nearly everything accessi- 
ble on the subject but Hume's England, he advised me 
to read Hume before I commenced on Blackstone, as the 
understanding of the law would become easier if I knew 
the history out of which it was evolved. 

I read at home all winter and when father brought 
James home in February, 1862, he found me quite hard 
at work. I remember that he told me he believed I would 
make a good lawyer. That was our last talk the day 
before his death. 

In the spring I grubbed out ten acres of jack oaks for 
father as my farewell contribution to making the farm 
and then went to Oskaloosa and continued my reading 
law in Rice, Myers & Rice 's office. 

The sounds of war filled our ears and the study of the 



AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF JOHN P. LACEY 403 

law seemed very dry that summer of 1862. I heard that 
exchange of prisoners was being negotiated and I wrote 
to General McKinstry at St. Louis, to ascertain if the 
discharged prisoners were included in the cartel. He 
wrote me that they were, and I again enlisted as a private 
in Company D, Thirty-third Iowa, under Captain John 
Lofland, in July, 1862. 

Samuel A. Rice was commissioned colonel of the regi- 
ment, and when it was fully organized I was appointed 
sergeant-major and so my studies again came to an end. 
Though I read Willard's Equity afterwards at nights 
during the siege of Mobile in 1865, my life from July, 
1862, till my return home in 1865 was that of a soldier. 

MY SECOND SERVICE IN THE WAR 

I soon found that the sergeant-major of a regiment has 
plenty of work to do and his field of usefulness is a very 
wide one. I made all the details of enlisted men for 
guard, fatigue, or other duties. They reported to me 
from day to day by name and soon I knew by name every 
man in the Thirty-third Iowa, which circumstance has 
given me much pleasure in my after life and was a most 
excellent practice in the useful art of learning names and 
faces. This knowledge I made valuable to the colonel in 
various ways and no doubt aided me in my subsequent 
promotion. 

We rendezvoused at Oskaloosa and were quartered in 
barracks at the fair grounds. October 1st we were mus- 
tered in by Lieutenant Charles J. Ball, U. S. A. Colonel 
Rice was an indefatigable student and mastered the tac- 
tics with the greatest ease. I was well trained in the 
manual of arms while in the Third Iowa, and night after 
night I put the colonel through the drill with an old 
Springfield musket until he became most proficient. 



404 MAJOR JOHN F. LACEY 

Colonel Rice was brave beyond any man whom I have 
ever known. He soon acquired the confidence of his 
men. 

We organized at Camp Tuttle (fair grounds) at Oska- 
loosa and there drilled daily until our muster in, October 
1, 1862. From Camp Tuttle we went to Keokuk and 
thence to St. Louis where we were assigned to duty 
guarding Rebel prisoners. From St. Louis we were sent 
to the field to meet Forrest at Columbus, Kentucky. We 
spent a short time in service in Kentucky and Tennessee, 
and then went by water from Columbus, Kentucky, to 
Helena, Arkansas. Our camp life at Helena was pro- 
ductive of much sickness. We took part in the remark- 
able campaign by water from Helena through the Yazoo 
Pass, trying to take Vicksburg by a back-door entrance. 

The Yazoo, Tallahatchie, Coldwater, and Mississippi 
were once connected by a bayou known as the Yazoo 
Pass. This pass had long been closed by a levee. We 
cut this levee and entered in high water at the upper end 
of the river and attempted to go to the rear of Vicks- 
burg. The enemy hastily constructed earthworks at 
Greenwood and here the enterprise came to a stand. The 
country was inundated and we could not reach the forts 
and an about face was ordered. 

The Yazoo and Tallahatchie had not seen the Yankee 
forces before and this region was the granary of the 
Confederates in Mississippi. A general exodus of the 
negroes followed us and the region became a ruin. As 
a war measure this was beneficial to the Union cause. 
The pass had been closed for a generation and had never 
been used for steamboats, so the coming of a vast fleet 
of iron-clads and transports was looked on by the slaves 
as marvelous or supernatural and we were received with 
every expression of joy by these darky friends. 



AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF JOHN F. LACEY 405 

On our return to Helena, we again resumed our old 
camp and commenced a thorough system of fortifications. 
One side trip to Cotton Plant, Arkansas, was made by 
the regiment. In May, 18G3, Captain A. J. Comstock 
recommended me for the position of first lieutenant, vice 
R. F. Burden, who resigned. This took me out of the 
non-commissioned staff and put me in a new company. 
I accepted the offer, knowing that it meant considerable 
hostility on the part of the men with whom I must serve 
as there were some excellent men in the company who 
aspired to the same position, and my promotion over the 
second lieutenant was not a very pleasing thing to that 
official. 

I knew that only two things would reconcile the men 
to this obtrusion of a new man into the second place in 
the company ; one was active, persistent, and efficient at- 
tention to all the wants of the men and the demonstra- 
tion of fitness which would satisfy them that I was the 
right man for the place. The other was a demonstration 
of nerve and coolness in danger, a thing which men al- 
ways admire even in their enemies. 

The first requirement I had a good chance to fill by as 
earnest work as any officer ever did in behalf of his men, 
but no engagement occurred while I served with the 
company. Colonel Rice was assigned to the command of 
a brigade and detailed me as acting assistant adjutant- 
general of the brigade and from that time until his death 
I was always at my post performing this duty. 

In the battle of Helena, July 4, 1863, Colonel Rice com- 
manded on the right wing. The Thirty-third Iowa of 
his brigade happened to be in the center and bore the 
brunt of the battle. Just as Price's forces made their 
gallant charge in the center I was in Battery A, from 
which I could overlook the whole battle. The charge of 



406 MAJOK JOHN F. LACEY 

the enemy on our works was one of the bravest perform- 
ances of the war, but it was bravery without discretion. 
On they came in splendid array, with flags flying, and 
charged over our lines and the Thirty-third Iowa was 
compelled to fall back. The Union troops made a firm 
stand at the next ridge, using the top of a sharp ridge as 
a natural embankment. Fort Curtis thundered over the 
heads of our men, and the gunboat Tyler sent heavy 
shells among the Rebel ranks and all at once the enemy 
disappeared as if they had been swallowed up by an 
earthquake. 

I had left my horse with an orderly just below the fort, 
under the shelter of the hill. I remounted and rode to 
Colonel Rice and reported what I had seen and he or- 
dered me to go to General Prentiss and say to him that 
we could spare some reinforcements from the right of 
the line. 

I went to General Prentiss as quickly as I could and 
as I met him I saw what had become of the charging 
enemy. They had concealed themselves in the deep 
ravines from our fire and there surrendered to our 
men. 

A steamboat from Grant's army near Vicksburg land- 
ed during the battle and these prisoners were at once 
loaded under guard and were soon steaming away up the 
river, and the recent splendid line of fighting men spread 
over the boat a dusty mass of brown, with nothing of the 
heroic in their appearance. 

Vicksburg surrendered the same day and the closing 
of Gettysburg occurred on the 3d, so the glory of the 
battle at Helena was overshadowed by the greatness of 
contemporaneous events. July 4th, 1863, was really the 
turning point in the great contest. 

The most ghastly scene of the war, for me, was the 
mass of Rebel dead along the center where they broke 



AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF JOHN F. LACEY 407 

through our line. One could easily have walked over 
that part of the line stepping only on the bodies of the 
dead. 

After this battle General F. Steele came up from 
Vicksburg, ordered by his old classmate, Grant, to or- 
ganize an expedition against Little Rock. Steele recog- 
nized in Rice a man capable of commanding and so as- 
signed the various regiments as to make Rice the ranking 
colonel of a division of three brigades and so I found 
myself promoted to be the assistant adjutant-general of 
a division, in which capacity I served during the Little 
Rock campaign. There was but little fighting in this 
campaign, for General Steele by a most masterly move- 
ment placed his cavalry on the south side of the Arkan- 
sas, and Price had to fight with the chance of being 
cooped up in the works or else had to retire, which latter 
alternative he selected and withdrew, leaving Steele in 
control of the line of the Arkansas River. 

Rice in the meantime was appointed brigadier-gen- 
eral, and at once recommended me for the position of 
captain and assistant adjutant-general of United States 
volunteers. 

In March, 1864, began our march towards the south- 
west. I will not give the details of that severe and bloody 
campaign. General Rice carried himself with honor and 
lost his life in battle. His staff was exposed with him 
constantly and received at the hands of the army due 
credit for duty well done. 

Rice was wounded at Jenkins Ferry April 30th and 
died of his wounds July 6th following. Captain Town- 
send, an aide on his staff, was killed. Major Duncan, 
another aide, and Lieutenant Baylis of his staff each had 
a horse killed under him, and I had a beautiful horse 
killed under me by a shell at the battle of Prairie d 'Anne 
April 10th. The strong hold that Rice and his staff had 



408 MAJOR JOHN F. LACEY 

in the affection of the army may be illustrated by an in- 
cident in my own experience. At Jenkins Ferry our 
train was hopelessly mired down and the wagons were 
destroyed and mules taken across the river to keep them 
from falling into the hands of the enemy. My small 
valise was in the headquarters wagon and I supposed had 
been buried with the wagon. A few days after arrival 
at Little Rock, after the battle, I met a soldier on the 
street who said to me that he had found the valise in the 
mud and had put it in an ambulance and brought it with 
him to Little Rock. 

Said he, "I saw your name on it and I thought if I 
could do anything for General Rice, or any one connected 
with him that it was my duty to do so." I keep that 
little old canvas covered valise yet as a memento of that 
campaign. 

Rice 's first fight in the campaign was with Shelby, who 
attacked the rear guard April 2d, at the Terre Noir 
Creek. April 4th he had another fight with Marmaduke 
at Elkins Ford on the Little Missouri. April 10th he had 
a fight at Prairie d'Anne; April 15th at Poison Springs, 
and finally the bloody battle of Jenkins Ferry April 30th. 
I was hit by a minie ball during the battle, but the rain 
was falling and I had a poncho over my shoulders and 
the poncho turned the bullet aside or I should have been 
killed, as the ball struck me fair in the right side, just 
above the point of the hip. I wrote an account of Gen- 
eral Rice at Jenkins Ferry which is published in the 
Annals of Ioiva, and also an article on General Steele 
in the same publication. 

My promotion as assistant adjutant-general of volun- 
teers had not yet been received when Rice died, but a 
few days after. I was still first lieutenant of Company 
C, Thirty-third Iowa, when I returned to Little Rock. T 



AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF JOHN F. LACE Y 409 

asked to be relieved from staff duty with Colonel Salo- 
mon, who succeeded Rice, as I presumed he would prefer 
a German from his own regiment, the Ninth Wisconsin. 

I went back to Company C and commenced duty again 
when one evening Major J. B. Wheeler, U. S. A., Steele's 
chief of engineers, rode up and called for me and said 
General Steele wished to see me. I went to department 
headquarters and Steele told me that he wanted me to 
serve on his staff until Rice should recover. I accepted 
his tender of position and at once entered on duty as an 
assistant to Lieutenant-Colonel W. B. Green. 

In a few days after I received my commission from 
President Lincoln and my direct connection with the 
Thirty-third Iowa ceased. I found that my work with 
Steele was not very active, as Colonel Green could read- 
ily do most of the work in the adjutant-general's office 
and Major B. B. Foster had also been assigned to the 
same work. General J. R. West was ordered on a cav- 
alry expedition after General Shelby in northeastern 
Arkansas and I volunteered as his assistant adjutant- 
general for the expedition. We spent a couple of weeks 
hunting Shelby but did not find him and I then returned 
to my duty at department headquarters. Refugees, de- 
serters, and escaped prisoners were coming in daily and 
I organized a system to utilize all the information that 
could be gathered from all these and other sources in 
regard to the rebel army. 

All such persons and all scouts were sent to me and I 
collected all the information that I could get from every 
source. I arranged these scraps of information system- 
atically and soon had a complete roster of the Rebel army 
in Arkansas and Louisiana, with a pretty accurate ac- 
count of the strength of every regiment, brigade, and 
division. Discrepancies in statements arose as to the 
strength of various regiments and I sifted the evidence 



410 MAJOR JOHN F. LACEY 

and made my reports on what seemed the most reliable 
estimate. General Steele was advised of my undertaking 
and approved it, but he was much surprised when I laid 
before him the result of my labors. About this time 
General Sterling Price broke through our lines and start- 
ed to Missouri to invade that state and gain recruits from 
the secessionists there. Steele sent for me and told me 
to take a copy of my Rebel roster and statement of Rebel 
army and go to St. Louis and report to General Rosecrans 
who would send me to the front with introduction to 
General A. J. Smith. 

A boat was ready at DuvalPs Bluff to start to Memphis. 
A telegram was sent to hold her until my arrival. The 
Rebel citizens came into Duvall's Bluff quite freely and 
no doubt the word got out that the boat was to be de- 
tained presumably for dispatches. Below Duvall's Bluff 
there is a long bend in the river where it is many miles 
around but only a few miles across. Whether the enemy 
had notice of our coming or not at any rate they waylaid 
us in a short bend of the river where the pilot afterwards 
told me the sternwheel steamers almost invariably ran 
into the bank in making the turn. I was lying in my state 
room reading a copy of Pope's translation of the Iliad 
when the rattle of musketry and the shrieks of the cham- 
bermaid brought me to my feet. I immediately placed 
my dispatches and papers in a large envelope, put in 
some pistol bullets for weight and sealed the package up 
ready to throw overboard. This I did very rapidly 
under the heavy fire raking us in all directions. The 
vessel began to obey the rudder and swung into the 
stream. A soldier in the ladies' cabin called to me and 
said, ' ' Here is a safe place, come and lie down by me. ' ' 
As he had a marble topped table turned up between him 
and the direction of the bullets I promptly accepted his 
hospitality and we lay in assured security until the boat 



AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF JOHN F. LACEY 41 1 

got out of reach of the enemy's guns. When the soldier 
and I got up I saw that the marble top of the table lay 
some distance away and we had simply the legs and 
frame work of the table, covered with a woolen cloth, 
turned up between us and the rebel musketry. But we 
had felt safe — in our minds. 

Notwithstanding that the boat was fairly riddled with 
bullets no one happened to be hit. The pilot hugged 
close to the shore, keeping inside his armor of boiler iron 
but not getting close enough for the enemy to jump 
aboard. 

At Memphis I spent a few hours while waiting for an 
upriver boat and while there saw one of my old friends 
of the state of Iowa, Captain C. R. Searle, who had been 
badly wounded a few days before by General Forrest's 
men on their raid into Memphis. I stopped at the Gay- 
oso Hotel where Forrest had ridden into the office and 
one of his staff had dismounted and registered "Gen. N. 
B. Forrest & Staff." 

I took the first boat for St. Louis where I presented 
my letter to General Rosecrans and after a long inter- 
view he sent me to A. J. Smith at Franklin. My docu- 
ments were of value to General Smith but not worth as 
much as General Steele had supposed, for Price reorgan- 
ized his army en route, changing brigades and divisions 
in such a way that the value of the information was 
much weakened. 

I returned to Steele with letter of thanks from General 
Smith and resumed my work. Steele sent copies of my 
reports to General Canby, who at once detailed an officer 
for similar work upon his staff and inaugurated my sys- 
tem throughout the military division of the Mississippi. 
I was gratified to see that my labors were thus appre- 
ciated by skilled West Point soldiers such as Canby and 
Steele. I was only twenty-three years old, but I found 



412 MAJOR JOHN F. LACEY 

myself freely called upon for the most difficult work on 
the staff. Colonel Wood of the Eleventh Missouri Cav- 
alry now offered me a position as major in his regiment. 
General E. A. Carr also offered me a position as his ad- 
jutant-general. Steele was relieved from the command 
of the department and ordered to report to General Can- 
by for service in the Mobile campaign. As my place was 
only temporary with Steele I thought best to consult him 
about these two offers. He promptly replied, "My pres- 
ent staff with but few exceptions is attached to the De- 
partment of Arkansas. You are not one of the regular 
corps of staff officers so assigned by the War Department 
and I want you to go with me to my new field as my 
adjutant-general. ' ' 

This was a much better position than either of the 
others tendered and I accepted and in December, 1864, 
went with the general to New Orleans and reported to 
Canby. On January 1, 1865, I was required to report to 
the adjutant-general of the army what duty I was on and 
as for a few days General Steele was unassigned I re- 
ported that fact and later on in April, while in the trench- 
es besieging Blakely and when I was adjutant-general of 
Steele's command of about 20,000 men, I received an or- 
der from the War Department to go to Virginia and re- 
port for duty to General Godfrey Weitzel of the Twen- 
ty-fifth Corps (colored). This is not, however, in the 
chronological order of my story. I laid the order before 
General Steele and he took the liberty to retain me and 
asked the War Department to revoke the order as he 
could not spare me. 

Later on, General Weitzel reported to me as Steele's 
adjutant-general in Texas where Weitzel was sent to join 
and report to Steele. I there complied with the order 
formally. Weitzel told me to stay with Steele and he 
would report to me. But to return: Canby directed 



AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF JOHN F. LACEY 413 

Steele to proceed with the organization of troops for the 
Mobile campaign. The regiments reported at Kenner- 
ville, twelve miles above New Orleans, and were there 
reshipped for Mobile Bay and Barrancas, near Pensacola. 

We afterwards followed the troops, spending a week 
at Fort Morgan and then went to Barrancas. Steele's 
army reorganized there and he sent Colonel A. B. Spur- 
ling's cavalry brigade from Milton up into Alabama while 
the infantry marched by way of Pollard to Blakely. 

Spurling made a brilliant raid through Alabama, cap- 
turing more men than his own brigade amounted to. 
We met General Claxton near Pollard, badly wounded 
him, and captured nearly all his brigade. 

We met the enemy near Blakely and drove them into 
the works and at once entered upon a regular siege. At 
Spanish Fort many of our old army of Arkansas troops 
took part in the siege, including the Thirty-third Iowa 
and Steele 's old regiment the Eighth Iowa Infantry. 

I will not give the details of this siege. On April 9th 
we charged the works and took them by storm. I went 
into the works with Steele who joined the charging party 
of the Thirty-fourth Iowa. Lee surrendered to Grant 
that same morning at Appomattox, but we did not know 
it, and so the storming at Blakely was the last real battle 
of the war. 

General Canby recommended me for a brevet for this 
campaign and I was brevetted major. Grant had re- 
quested Canby to give Steele the Thirteenth Corps which 
would haye given me the rank of lieutenant-colonel and 
A. A. G., but Canby gave the corps to Granger and gave 
Steele an independent command composed of part of 
Granger's corps, the colored division of Hawkins, and a 
force of cavalry. The position was a better one for Steele 
but prevented his staff from obtaining corps rank. 

For some months I had foreseen the collapse of the 



414 MAJOR JOHN F. LACEY 

Confederacy and was considering the course I should 
take on my return home. As I intended to practice law 
I wanted to prepare myself for admission to the bar as 
early as I could so I took up my law books again and 
carried some of them with me to read. During the siege 
of Mobile I read Willard's Equity in my tent at night 
after completing my official work for the day. An occa- 
sional shell lighting near my tent somewhat diverted my 
mind from the principles of equity, but I found it good 
mental training, for if one could read a dry book under 
the fire of siege guns he could study law almost anywhere. 

When we captured Mobile, Steele was next sent to 
Montgomery, Alabama, with a large force of transports. 
General A. J. Smith marched by land to the same place. 
Some conflict arose as to whether Steele or Smith should 
command the forces in Northern Alabama. Steele as- 
sumed and held the command as the ranking officer for a • 
time. Here I first met Captain C. A. Boutelle, U. S. 
Volunteer Navy, afterward congressman from Maine. 
Poor Boutelle. He since died demented. He brought up 
dispatches announcing that the Sherman-Johnston truce 
was declared off and that hostilities must be resumed. 
The difficulty was not long in adjusting itself and there 
was no more fighting. 

On the way up the river we had met a flag of trace in a 
skiff announcing the cessation of hostilities, which was 
greeted with great cheering. 

We returned to Mobile and there were ordered to Texas 
to capture E. Kirby Smith and at the same time make a 
diversion in favor of Juarez in his contest with Maxi- 
milian in Mexico. We crossed the Gulf, landing at Bra- 
zos, Santiago. The French fleet came up and paid us a 
visit, the officers being quite anxious to know what so 
large a force (42,000) could have to do in that part of 
Texas. 



AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF JOHN F. LACEY 415 

At Brownsville we met Cortina, the Liberal leader, and 
Mejia, the Imperial general, who was afterwards shot at 
Queretaro with Maximilian and Miramon. Mejia was a 
full blooded Aztec. Cortina had been a bandit and was a 
Spaniard in blood. Speaking of Mejia he said, "He is 
one baboon dressed up in magnificent uniform." Poor 
Mejia! He died like a hero, though they compelled him 
to turn his back to the firing squad while Maximilian was 
given the honor of facing his executioners. 

When I saw the three stone crosses marking the scene 
of this execution in 1895, I was carried back thirty years 
to the summer of 1865 at Brownsville and Matamoras. 

The breakbone fever, a kind of substitute for yellow 
fever, broke out in July along the Rio Grande. Every- 
body took it and I along with the rest. An order had 
been issued by the War Department authorizing officers 
holding commissions from the President to be sent home, 
there to report for muster out. I availed myself of this 
order and General Steele got out of a sick bed and wrote 
a very complimentary general order relieving me from 
duty and directing me to return to my home for dis- 
charge. I crossed the Gulf of Mexico and took boat at 
New Orleans for St. Louis and Keokuk, and home by 
rail. On my arrival at home I spent a few days visiting 
home and friends and then made arrangements for im- 
mediately commencing the practice of the law. I was at 
once employed in some cases and it was necessary that I 
should be admitted to the bar before the approaching 
term at Oskaloosa, so I went to Fairfield and there took 
the examination and was duly admitted by Judge Wm. 
Loughridge (afterwards congressman). 

I had been engaged to be married to Miss Mattie Newell 
for more than three years and now there was no reason 
for further delay in our marriage except the uncertainty 
of being able to make a living. We resolved to take the 



416 MAJOR JOHN F. LACEY 

chances, and accordingly, September 18, 1865, I opened 
up a law office and on the 19th we were married. When 
my discharge came from the adjutant-general's office a 
few days later it was also dated on the 19th of September. 

I was not ready for the practice of the law but what 
was better I knew of my inadequate preparation. My 
studies had been broken into by the war. I had had a 
splendid school in the study of men and officers and per- 
haps that has been worth more to me than a more thor- 
ough study of books would have been. But I immediate- 
ly commenced to make good my shortcomings by steady 
unintermitting study which I have kept up ever since. 

I may add that after my exchange and reenlistment in 
July, 1862, 1 did not lose an hour's time from duty until 
after the end of the war when I was discharged. My en- 
tire service was about three years and eight months, my 
final discharge bearing date September 19, 1865. 

THE PRACTICE OF LAW 

I commenced practice with inadequate preparation, as 
I have already stated, but I only just began to read law 
when I commenced active practice. From 1865 to 1888, 
twenty-three years, I worked from twelve to sixteen hours 
a day at my profession. It was my custom, though, not 
to abandon my other studies, but to always keep some 
good book on hand to read in course. If I went to Sig- 
ourney or Knoxville to try a case I had the book with me 
which I was then reading and any spare time that I 
might have on hand coming or going, or while waiting for 
my turn in court, I spent in study or reading. 

The number of books that I have thus read is very 
large. By taking up outside studies in this way a pro- 
fessional man may broaden the range of his vision and 
prevent the tendency to narrowness which too close appli- 
cation to a single profession is apt to occasion. 



AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF JOHN F. LACEY 417 

I studied geology with great pleasure, also took up 
astronomy and read all kinds of history and literature. 
It became my custom, as soon as I could afford it, to take 
a month's vacation every year and travel somewhere, al- 
ways going to a new place each time, thus visiting every 
state in the Union and every territory but Alaska. 3 I 
did not travel for my health but by this travel and an- 
nual relaxation kept my health in spite of the intensity 
of my professional employment. In 1878 my wife and I 
took a journey to Europe, visiting England, Scotland, 
France, Italy, Belgium, Holland, Germany, and Switzer- 
land. In 1884 we again visited Europe and journeyed 
through Ireland, England, France, Germany, Austria, 
Belgium, and Italy, visiting Rome on this journey. In 
these days of easy travel it will not be necessary to spend 
any time in describing the familiar scenes through which 
we traveled. There is no knowledge so easily obtained 
as that which is absorbed by a wide-awake traveler. The 
days are long in summer in the high altitude of Europe, 
and much sight-seeing may be done between sun and sun. 
We traveled too hard and tried to see too much, as Amer- 
icans are apt to do. In journal letters written daily to 
the children at home we gave a faithful chronicle of both 
these tours of Europe. In those days Mrs. Lacey was a 
good traveler and kept up with the procession, even 
though it was a rapid one. 

In 1869 I was solicited by many of my old comrades to 
stand for the legislature. I was nominated by a primary 
election and elected by a large majority and took part in 
the deliberations of the Thirteenth General Assembly. 
I served on the judiciary committee and several minor 
committees. 

I resolved then to keep out of active personal politics 
and though taking part in all political contests I refused 

3 Major Lacey visited Alaska in 1907. 



418 MAJOR JOHN F. LACEY 

to enter in any contest for personal political preferment 
and devoted my time to my business. 

In 1870 I wrote and published the Third Iowa Digest, 
a volume of Iowa law, being a continuation of the pre- 
vious digests of Judge Dillon and Professor Hammond. 

In 1875 I published the first volume of Lacey's Railway 
Digest and in 1884 the second volume. This work in- 
cluded all cases of railway law in the English language 
from the time of the invention of railways to the year 
1884, including Australian, Canadian, and English cases. 
The work involved in the preparation of these two large 
volumes was very great. The work speedily passed into 
the hands of all practitioners of railway law. My royalty 
on the volumes was not an adequate compensation for the 
labor involved, but it was of great value to me in the 
practice of my profession to have actually examined per- 
sonally every railway case in the English language, and 
to have digested the same. I was called into the trial of 
many railway cases and by employment in that line of 
work received many very satisfactory fees, thus obtain- 
ing my reward for the work done. 

My name was in 1872 brought up in the Republican 
convention for circuit judge, but I did not actively seek 
the position and was fortunately not nominated for the 
position. Going upon the bench would have withdrawn 
me from the active practice which had now become second 
nature to me. I tried cases continually in all the courts, 
state and federal, and for thirty years no Iowa report 
was published that did not contain one or more of my 
cases. I have preserved in bound volumes the printed 
records of my cases in the Supreme Court of Iowa and 
other courts in which the records are printed, and the 
record is quite a voluminous one. 

I was fortunate in the selection of a location for the 
practice of the law on one account, and that was the 



AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF JOHN F. LACEY 419 

strength of the local har. The best school for a lawyer 
is the trial of cases among strong lawyers. Philip Myers, 
of the old firm of Rice, Myers & Rice, quit business soon 
after I came to the bar, but I learned his office methods 
by reading law with him when I was on parole in 1862. 
Judge Wm. H. Seevers, Judge J. A. L. Crookham, Lieu- 
tenant-Governor John R. Needham, Attorney-General 
and Congressman M. E. Cutts, Judge and Congressman 
Wm. Loughridge, Judge J. Kelley Johnson were among 
the gentlemen whom I was called upon to meet of the older 
bar, while J. B. Bolton, Judge Ben McCoy, and Liston 
McMillen were among the younger members. At Knox- 
ville I had to meet Governor Stone and Judge Ayers ; at 
Newton, Judge D. Ryan and Judge H. S. Winslow; at 
Sigourney, Colonel C. H. Mackey, Judge and Congress- 
man E. S. Sampson, and Geo. D. Woodin. All these 
men were good lawyers and some of them exceptionally 
strong. In the United States courts and the Iowa Su- 
preme Court I met the bar from all over the state. 

There is scarcely any kind of a case, civil or criminal, 
that I have not tried. It has been my custom in every 
case to go to the bottom of it. If it involved an injury 
to an arm I studied the anatomy of the arm as carefully 
as any surgeon would have done. If it involved a ques- 
tion of insanity I obtained and read every work on the 
subject. In short it has been a pleasure to me, for I loved 
work, to study every question that might arise in the 
progress of each case as it came up. I might at any time 
have availed myself of my special knowledge of railway 
law by taking employment with one of the great railway 
corporations and growing up in its business. From a 
financial point of view I should have done this, but there 
was always a fascination in the general practice. I liked 
a multitude of clients. I liked to have them take their 
turns waiting for me to consider their cases. I shrunk 



420 MAJOR JOHN F. LACEY 

from throwing up the independence of a numerous, in- 
dividual clientage and placing myself where a railway 
superintendent or board of directors of a single corpora- 
tion might turn me out to commence life over again. And 
so it was that I continued to put my nose to the legal 
grindstone and watched the sparks fly in the practice of 
Iowa. 

It is well understood that it is this kind of practice that 
makes the best lawyers. The attorney whose business 
compels him to take and study every kind of a case be- 
comes an all-around lawyer. The specialist may become 
very skillful in his work but he cannot be a broad lawyer. 

The best and most successful lawyers in the great cities 
are those who have first traveled the hard and laborious 
path of general practice in smaller places where special- 
izing was impracticable. 

In 1865 I formed a partnership with my old schoolmate 
and comrade of the Third Iowa Infantry, Win. E. Shep- 
herd. The firm was Lacey & Shepherd. Unfortunately 
for Mr. Shepherd he had had sufficient political influence 
to secure the appointment of postmaster at Oskaloosa, 
and though at first it seemed that the salary of the office 
($1600) was a considerable addition to the resources of 
the firm, it soon became a disadvantage, for our business 
rapidly grew, and Mr. Shepherd was compelled to attend 
to his affairs in the postoffice and found it difficult to 
keep up with the rapid growth of the business of the firm. 
Our partnership was most pleasant and we kept it up till 
1873 when Mr. Shepherd emigrated to California, selling 
out to me, and my brother, Wm. R. Lacey, took his place 
and the firm became John F. & Wm. R. Lacey. One of 
the most interesting cases tried by me was that of the 
State vs. Pleasant Anderson, tried in 1883. Anderson 
was charged with a most brutal murder and was acquit- 
ted. His neighbors near Blakesburg, Iowa, took him out 



AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF JOHN F. LA ('MY 42] 

afterwards and hung him, believing him to be guilty, a 
belief that I did not share. They placed a noose around 
his neck and took him in a sled to the scene of the murder 
and tying the rope to a limb were about to pull the sled 
out from under him when Anderson called to a little boy 
to come and pull off his boots so that he might not ' ' die 
with his boots on. ' ' 

This incident illustrates the character and coolness of 
the man, but it did not soften the hearts of the men who 
had resolved upon his death. Whilst I did not refuse 
criminal practice I never sought it and it bore a small 
proportion to my general business. 

My practice in the various courts in southern Iowa en- 
larged my acquaintance and led to many suggestions of 
nomination for office, and especially for Congress. I did 
not care to have my business broken into by the uncertain- 
ties and labor of a personal political contest and up to 
1888 gave no serious thought to any of these suggestions. 
I had held the position of city solicitor one term, and al- 
derman one term, but these places interfered but little 
with my usual professional life. 

MY CONGRESSIONAL LIFE 4 

My bill for the protection of the lives of miners in the 
territories was my favorite measure. The gases in the 
Indian Territory mines were a source of dreadful danger 
there and I foresaw that unless some proper legislation 
was had there would be a great slaughter some day in 
these mines. I got copies of all the mining laws of all 

* Major Lacey's story of his congressional life is intensely interesting 
and not only records personal history in connection -with important com- 
mittee work and the passage of noteworthy bills but includes many anec- 
dotes of public men that are vastly entertaining. It is unfortunate that 
the limitations of this volume forbid the printing of the complete manu- 
script of forty-seven pages but it is to be hoped that in the near future the 
entire account may be published. The report of one bill is given here. 



422 MAJOR JOHN F. LACEY 

the states and territories and also of England and her 
colonies, and then prepared a short but effective bill for 
the territories. The bill was delayed in the House, but 
finally was reported favorably and passed. In the Sen- 
ate I followed it up and obtained a favorable report and 
it was placed upon the calendar. I pressed it for action 
there but could not get it up until the last day of the last 
session of the Fifty-first Congress. As I had been de- 
feated for the Fifty-second Congress this day was my 
last opportunity. It must all be gone over again in an- 
other Congress. I went to the Senate and it was called 
up and unanimous consent asked to put it on its passage. 
John Sherman objected. I went to Mr. Sherman and 
proposed to explain the bill and he declined to hear me. 
Said he, "This is the last day of the session and this is too 
important a bill to go through without discussion by 
unanimous consent." I conceded the force of his objec- 
tion but said I could explain the necessity in a moment, 
but he said he had no time and could not hear me and must 
insist on his objection. I replied with much feeling and 
earnestness, "Senator Sherman, the passage of this bill 
is imperatively necessary. Hundreds of human lives are 
at stake. If this bill passes it will be of no personal ad- 
vantage to you, but if it fails on your objection you will 
not soon hear the last of it. There are many thousand 
of miners in Ohio. If the bill passes they will recognize 
that Congress has not neglected their brethren in the ter- 
ritories. But if the bill fails because of your objection, 
you will probably soon hear of a fearful slaughter by a 
gas explosion and everybody will then demand of you to 
know why you killed this bill. ' ' 

I struck the senator in the weak point. The rule in 
the Senate is said to be that "No one cares what happens, 
so that it does not happen to him," and the senator at 
once saw what might happen to him, and was also im- 



AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF JOHN F. LACEY 423 

pressed by my earnestness and be promised to examine 
the bill. 

He did so and it was called up again. Senator Sher- 
man arose and said that "This was the same bill that he 
had objected to, but that he had taken pains to carefully 
examine it and withdrew all objections and hoped the bill 
would pass." This statement prevented any further 
objection and the bill passed. It was then after eleven 
o'clock and the Congress adjourned sine die at twelve. I 
hurried back to the House, Mr. Reed put me on the com- 
mittee on enrolled bills as a temporary additional member 
to hasten the enrollment of some delayed bills, and I took 
pains to get this bill in the hands of President Harrison 
just in time for him to sign it, four minutes before twelve, 
it being the last bill signed in the Fifty-first Congress. 
But it was too late for an appropriation in that session 
and before the next session a great explosion occurred in 
Indian Territory mines by which sixty-seven men were 
killed or badly wounded. 

At the next session President Harrison sent a special 
message to the Congress asking an immediate appropria- 
tion to put the law in operation, and it has since been in 
successful operation without amendment and has proved 
a great blessing to the miners there. 

Though many of the miners of Iowa have always a 
strong tendency to populism and visionary monetary 
schemes, yet they have treated me with kind consideration 
because of this bill. Though it is not likely that it gained 
me any votes among them, it disarmed active hostility 
and no doubt has been of personal advantage to me. 



INDEX 



INDEX 



Abbot, Judge, 44, 212, 219 
Achilles, 242, 258 
Acoma, 210 

pueblo, 44 

ruins, 212, 219 
Adair, James, 54 
Adamana, 205 

Emery mill at, 204 
Adams, C. F. 

Eetort of, 251 

John, 129, 277 
Death of, 277 

John Q., 333 

Samuel, 277 

Sarah, 78 
Adamson, W. C, 152, 153 
Adirondacks Forest Reserve, 104 
^Eneas, 301, 307 
Affidavit sergeant, 291 
Africa, partition proposed, 172 

United States flag in, 351 

War in, 354 
Agathocles, 354 
Agriculture, Department of 

Enlarging powers, 136- 

140 
Secretary of, 96 
Alaska, 417 

Elastic boundary of, 317 

Poem on, 365, 366 

purchase, 134, 326, 332 

Yields of, 134 
Albert Nyanza, 326 
Aldine Club 

Address at, 160, 167 

Dinner, 167 
Alexander VI, 316, 329 

Bull of, 281, 287 
Alexander, E. A., xiii 



Allnrd buffalo bmd, 114 
Allen, A. F. of Ames, xiii 
Allen, A. F. of Sioux City, xiii 
Ethan. Monument, 279 
J. M., 224, 226 
M. C, xiii 
Allison, Wm. B., 15, 305 
Alps, 365 
Alsace, 235 

America, Discovery of, 329 
for Americans, 336 
not represented in St. Mark 's, 264, 
329 
American Archaeological Institute, 
210 
Forestry Association, 69 
Game Protective Association, 407 
Monopoly of title, 303 
Peace Society, 355 
progress westward, 310 
Republic, 358 
Americans recognize each other, 232 

wasteful, 81 
Ames, Asa L., xi 
Ancestors revered, 324 
Ancestry not essential to rank, 261 
Anderson, L. W., xi 
Pleasant, 420-421 
Anecdote about affair at Duvall 's 
Bluff, 410 

Confederate soldier, 283 
counterfeit dollar, 387 
Japanese student, 234 
Lacey -Weaver campaign, 

48, 49 
Mark Twain, 75 
Niagara Falls, 320 
old soldier, 50-51 
plush cap, 388 



428 



MAJOR JOHN F. LACEY 



Sherman, 401 

soldier at Stony Point, 

273-274 
Springer, 218 

from Punch, 87 
Anglo-Saxon, 330 

race, 271 
Annals of Iowa, 408 
Annapolis, 354 
Antarctic Continent 

American flag on, 351 
Antelope 

Illegal shipment of, 137 

near Gardiner, 176 
Anthracite coal exhausted, 78, 81 
Antiquities, Preservation of, 36 
Ants battle with centipede, 214 
Apostles' Creed, 264, 277 
Appalachian forests, 95 
Appeal against departmental regula- 
tion, 185 
Appenines, 72 
Appomattox, 249, 254, 306 
Apprentices' food regulated by law, 

82 
Arbela, Battle of, 318 
Arbitration, 337, 355 
Arbor Day, 77, 87, 91 
Archaeological Institute, American, 

210 
Archaeologists, Outing with, 210-219 
Archaeology, American 

School at 
Athens, 210 
Jerusalem, 210 
Santa Fe, 210, 211 
Rome, 210 
Arctium, 284, 318 
Arey, M. F., xiii 
Arizona 

a resort for invalids, 207 

Cliff dwellers ruins in, 222 

deserts, 94 
Arkansas part of Louisiana, 285, 321 
Arminius, Monument to, 248 
Army of Observation, 22, 338 
Artesian well at Oskaloosa, 285 



Aryan race, Origin of, 307 
Associated Press, 96 
Astronomer, Discoveries of, 265 
Atchison, Colonel, 394 
Athens 

Archaeological school at, 210 

Message from, 270 

powerful, 306 
Atlanta, Battle of, 393 

campaign, 401 
Audubon Society, 31, 42, 164 
Augustus, 248, 265, 324 
Auk, 82, 89, 106 

Austerlitz, Napoleon at, 239-240, 319 
Australia, Settlers in, 273 
Austria 

in Holy Alliance, 330 

signs Treaty of Verona, 331 
Autobiography of Major Lacey, 46, 

47, 377-423 
Automobile, 352, 359 
Ayauway, 324 
Ayers, Judge, 419 
Aztecs, 314, 325 

Civilization of, 329 

Baker, Professor, 296 

Baldauf, Sam, 346 

Baldwin, W. W., xi 

Ball, Lieutenant C. J., 403 

Baltimore, 357 

Bamboo, 118 

"Bank of the Holy Ghost," 331 

Bar Association, State 

Address before, 3-11 
Barn raising, 294 
Barrancas, 413 
Barrington, E. P., xi 
Bass, A. J., 54 
Bates, C. O., xiii 
Battery A, 405 

Battlefield parks, why created? 247 
Battles 

Arbela, 318 

Atlanta, 393 

Belmont, 401 

Blenheim, 250 



1NDKX 



429 



Blue Mills Landing, 21, 63, 395- 
396, 400 

Bull Bun, 249, 251, 260 

Corinth, 347 

Flkin's Ford, xviii, 23, 408 

Ft. Blakely, xviii, 23, 413 

Gettysburg, 244 

Hagar's Woods, 394 

< ' Hatchie, ' ' 401 

Helena, xviii, 23, 254, 351, 405-406 

Jenkins' Ferry, xviii, 22, 23, 407, 
408 

Foison Springs, xviii, 23, 408 

Prairie d'Anne, xviii, 23, 407 

Sedan, 318 

Shiloh. 234, 247, 24S, 253, 280, 
292, 401 

Spanish Fort, 413 

Terrfenoir (Terre Noir) Creek, 
xviii, 23, 407 

Vicksburg, 401 
Battles fought because of omens, 314 
Battleships, Cost of, 355 
Baylis, Lieutenant, 407 
Bean Creek, 

(See Eito de los Frijoles) 
Behring Straits, 340 

Sea, 366 
Belmont, Battle of, 401 
Bennett, Lake, 365 
Benton, T. H., 360 
Bicycle, 359 

Big Trees of California, 83, 89, 207 
Beaver, 171 
Becker, F., xiii 
Bennett, F. A., xiii 
Billmyer, Representative, 200 

Beport of deer propagation, 201 
Bills discussed 

Alaska game, 168 

Arizona petrified forests, 7, 9, 203, 
206, 207 

Cliff Dwellers National Park, 220 

Crater Lake, 9 

Curtiss Act, 46 

Establishing bird breeding grounds, 
168 



Forest preservation, 7 

Forestry, 38, 109 

Eomestead, 367, 369 

Indian citizenship, 16 

I irrigation of arid lands, 104 

Lacej bird law, xix, 7, 14, 16, 17, 
24, 25, 39, 11 

Lacey game law, 38, 39, 60, 109, 

136, 164, 168 

Leasing public lands, 120-123 

Mills, 49 

Miner's protection, 421-42:'. 

Mining, 38 

Nationalizing game ami bird laws, 
169 

of Bights, 318 

Railroads in Alaska, 32 

Biver and harbor improvements, 
357 

To protect buffalo, 158 

Wichita preserve, 168 

Yellowstone National Bark, 7, 9, 
24, 25, 60, 168, 190 

Yosemite Park, 9 
Biloxi, Blants of, 320 
Bird conservation 

law, 7, 14, 16, 17, 24, 25, 39, 41, 194 

millinery, 83, 145-164 

preservation, 12, 96 

Utility and sentiment in, 171 

protection, xix, 7, 172, 174 
Birds, Columbus watched flight of, 

2S0, 314 

Flight directed events, 280, 329 

Migratory, 41, 175, 178, 179, 180, 
181, 185, 195 

Beintroduetion of, 141 

Unwise introduction prevented, 165 
Bison, 15, 17, 400 

adapted to arid plains, 155, 164 

Allard herd, 114 

at Mammoth Hot Springs, 197 

Buffalo Jones herd, 156 

Corbin's herd, 97. 156, 196 

Domestication, 109 

east of Mississippi River, 154 

emigrate westward, 154 



430 



MAJOR JOHN F. LACEY 



Extermination of, 71, 82, 96, 108, 
146, 155, 163, 196 

Flathead herd, 97, 156, 196, 197 

Fort Pierre herd, 197 

Goodnight herd, 97, 156, 197 

Habits of, 108, 155 

in New Mexico, 157, 158 

Yellowstone Park, 96, 156, 158, 

196 
Zoological Parks, 156 

preservation, 96, 158 

preserve, 154 

Value of, 82 
Black, G. D., xiii 
Blackstone, 402 
Black Hills, Settlers in, 102 
Blaine, J. G, 347 
Blakesburg, 421 
Blenheim, Battle of, 250 
Bliss, G. R., xiii 
Bloomfield Republican, 32 
Blue Mills Landing 

Battle of, xvii, 21, 63, 395, 396, 
400 
Blue Ridge, Soldiers in the, 258 
Board of Trade, 362 
Boar's Head, 277 
Bolton, J. B., 419 
Bonaparte 

(See Napoleon) 
"Bonnie Blue Flag," 239 
Boone and Crockett Club, 60, 61 
"Boston men," 303 
Boulogne, 319 

Bourbon dynasty defeated, 330 
Bourrienne, 127 
Boutelle, Capt. C. A., 414 
Bowdish, J. W., xi 
Boyd, W. R., xi 
Boyer, Dr., 291 

Barn raising at home of, 294 

Josephine, 53, 57 
Boyle, 262 
Brant, David, 29 
Brant protected, 180 
Brazil abolishes slavery, 242 

becomes republic, 337 



Brazos, Landing at, 414 
Breakbone fever, 415 
Breech-loaders rapid destroyers, 

105 
Breeding places for wild life, 195- 

202 
Brewer, L. A., xi 
Brewster, Doris, xi, 302 

Elder William, 302 

Eleanor Lacey, xi, 35, 46, 371, 

372, 377 

James B., xi 

Mrs. J. B. (See Eleanor Lacey) 
Bridgman, Laura, 78 
British policy 

to hold territory, 337 
in Egypt, 337 
in Venezuela, 337 
Brookfield, 393, 394, 397, 400 
Brooks, Beauty of, 72 
Brown, John 

Captured, 305, 306 
Daughter of, 306 

J. A., 187 

Timothy, 73 
Brownsville, 22, 415 
Brundusium, 73, 84 
Bryan, W. J., 347 
Bryant, quoted, 71 
Buchanan, Mrs. R. E., xiii 
Buckner, Gen. S. B., 240, 252 
Buell, Gen. D. C, 281, 292 
Buffalo (See Bison) 
Bull of Alexander VI, 281, 287, 316, 

329 
Bull Run, Battle of, 249, 251, 260 
Bunker Hill Monument, 279 
Burden, R. F., 405 
Burial customs among cliff dwellers, 

213 

Burlington Gazette, 33 

Hawleye, 30 
Burns, Robert, 355 
Burrell, W. C, xi 
Burrit, Elihu, 352 
Burrows, J. C, 346 
Butler, F., 54 



INDEX 



431 



Byers, S. II. M., xi, 11, 29, 53, 56 
Poem by, 56, 65 

Cadiz, 381, 388 
Cairo, 279 
Calhoun, J. C, 333 
California, 339 

Camden, Campaign against, 23 
Camp Tuttle, xviii, 404 
Campbell, Eichard, 292, 392 
Campus at Ames, 369 
Canada, 42 

exchanged for Guadaloupe, 133 
Canada de Cochiti claim, 220 
Canal not rival of railroad, 359 

Suez, 340, 359 

through Nicaragua, 339, 340 
Canals of Mars, 359 
Cssars, Power of the, 324 
Canby, Gen. E. R. S., 22, 411, 412, 

413 
Cannon, Joe, 96 

Anecdote, 144-145 
Canton, McKinley at, 325 
' ' Cape of Good Hope, » ' 252, 279 
Circumnavigation of, 329 
route to India, 340 
Cape Horn, 340 
"Cape of Storms," 252, 329 
Carlotta, 339 
Carr, Gen. E. A., 412 
Carroll, Charles of Carrolton, 276 

Dr. Mitchell, 217 
Carter, C. F., xiii 
Carthage, Sea power of, 261 
Castle Garden, 299 
Cathedrals of Middle Ages, 288 

St. Mark's, 264, 329 

St. Paul's, 249 
Catholics settle in Maryland, 315 
Cattle companies and grazing lands, 

119 
Cave dwellers, Ruins, 210, 212 
Cedar Rapids Gazette, 33 

Republican, 271 
Cedars, 69, 80 

of Lebanon, 84 



Celt combines with other nations, 309 

Centennial Years, Scries of, 313 

< 'entipede hatt les with ants, 21 I 

Central America, Ruins in, 211 

Foreign dominion over, 340 
Century, Nineteenth 

Events of the, 259 
Cephalonians, 301 
Chalcedony in petrified forest, 209 
Champlain Lake, 365 
Charles II, Grant of, 128 
Charles the Bold at Granson, 250 
Cheronea, 248 
Chester, Castle at, 380 
Chicago, 3 

claimed by Connecticut, 305 

Exposition, 281 
Cost, 282 
Iowa exhibit at, 358 

History of, 128, 129, 130 

Tribune, 88 
Chichen Itza ruins, 211 
Chickamauga field, 254, 258 
Chicken coops taken to war, 314 
Chinese, 312 
Christian, G. M., xi 
Churchyards in Maryland, 70, 84 
Cincinnati, 389 

Citadel important to Romans, 288 
Citizenship, Good, 368 
City Point, 254 

Civil War, 4, 63, 107, 134, 248, 256, 
283 

Survivors, 260 

Woman's share in, 311 
Clarington, 381 
Clark, Champ, 48, 150 
E. H., 270 

Geo. Rogers, 129 

I. H., xiii 
Clarke, C. F., xiii 

G. W., xiii 
Claxton, Gen., 413 
Clay County, 392 
Clay, Henry, 362 

Clayton vs. Breckenridge Case, 38 
Clayton-Bulwer Treaty. 339, 340 



432 



MAJOR JOHN F. LACEY 



Cleburne, 274 
Cleveland, Grover, 78 
Cliff dwellers 

Burial customs of, 213 

Drawings by, 214-216 

National Park, 220-223 
Eegulations, 220 

Eeligious rites of, 213 

Ruins of, 210-^19, 220, 221 
Climate and weather, 73 

affected by forests, 112 
Clinton Herald, 27 
Cloakroom stories, 48-49 
Clubwomen, Work of, 83, 89 
Coal deposits, 70 

in Mississippi Valley, 287, 320 

oil, 70, 82, 89, 95 
in Australia, 320 
Texas, 106 
Wales, 320 

miners, Protection of, 25, 421-423 

Power of, 320 
Coates, Mr., 320 
Cobbett, Wm, 245 
Cochiti, 210 

church, 216 

claim, 220 
Coddington, Colonel, Will of, 282 
Coldwater Elver, 404 
Cole, Cyrenus, xi 
Coleridge, Lord John, 125 

S. T., 205 
Colfax Springs, 309 
College equips students for life, 350 
Colonies settled in United States, 281 

Spanish, claim independence, 332 
Colorado, Cliff-dwellers ruins, 222 

Massacre in, 163 

part of Louisiana, 321 
Columbia Eiver, Lewis & Clark, Ex- 
pedition to, 324 
Columbus, 69, 329, 353 

at San Salvador, 301 

Descendants of, 262 

Expenditures for voyages, 287 

Voyages of, 281-282 



Columbus, Ky., 404 
Comet, Halley's, 352 
Commandments, Ten, 256, 264, 277 
Committees, Lacey's work on 

elections, 38 

enrolled bills, 423 

Indian, 46 

interstate and foreign commerce, 
136 

invalid pensions, 48 

public lands, 99, 110, 120, 160, 220 
Common Place Book, 47 
Communal ruins, 212, 222 
Como, 365 
Company C, xviii, 408, 409 

D, xvii, 63, 403 

F, 53 

H, xvii, 21, 63, 392, 394 
Comstock, Capt. A. J., 405 
Conard, H. S., xiii 
Conaway, Freeman, 37 
Concord, Sage of, 342 
Confederacy, Collapse of, 414 

High mark of, 250 
Confederate forces, 238, 369 

fought for respective states, 274 

Patriotism of, 274 
Confederate soldier, Anecdote of, 283 
Congressional action and the market, 
363 

campaign against Gen. Weaver, 
xix, 5, 6, 48, 49, 347 

speculators, 361, 362, 363 
Conkling, Eoscoe, 125 
Connecticut boundary, 130 

claims, 305 

laws, 82 
Connor, Thomas, 236 
Conservation of national resources, 

Committee, 187 
Constantine, Arch of, 283 
Constantinople, Capture of, 265, 325 
Constitution of United States, 132, 
133, 288 

Slavery not mentioned in, 288 
Consuls, Eoman, followed omens, 314 



INDEX 



433 



Contents, Table of, vii-ix 

Continental army, Monroe in, 333 

Cook County, 111., claimed by Wis- 
consin, 131 

Cook's tourists, 352 

Cooper, Albert, 54, 351 

Corbett, 269 

Corbin 's herd of bison, 97, 156, 196 

Corinth, 347 

Corinto seized by English, 336 

Coroebus, 270 

Cortina, 415 

Cotton Plant, Ark., 405 

Corey, Hiram, 292 

Cork, 301, 
Earl of, 262 

Cortez, 354 

Cosmo de Medici, Statue of, 346 

Cosmopolitan Magazine, 361 

Costa Eica, 340 

"Cotter's Saturday Night," 355 

Council Bluffs Nonpareil, 28 

County fair, First in Oskaloosa, 343 

Cowan, W. E., xi 

Creasy, 301 

Creed, 256 
Apostles', 264, 277 

Crittenden, T. T., 35 

Crinoids, Anecdote about, 218 

Croesus, 355 

Cromwell's troops disbanded, 243 

Crookham, Judge J. A. L., 419 

Crossley, Lieutenant, 394 
V. C, xiii 

Crowell's school, 391 

Crozier, M. W., 54 

Cruzen, B., 54 

Cuba, Spanish power in, 337 
Travels in, xix 
War in, 258 

Culley, F., xiii 

Cummings, Amos, 150 

Cummins, Gov. A. B., 25 

Curry, Eobert, 266, 343 

Curtis, S. E., 393 

Cutts, M. E., 5, 419 



Cuvirr, Baron George, 269 
Cyclone 

Dcstructiveness of, 269 

Dalles 

View of Mt. Hood from, 160, 161 
Damascus blade, 268, 278 
Darnell, Sumner, 292 
Daubigne, 385 

Daughters of the Eevolution, 262 
l>;i\is, Dan, 62 

Eleanor, 378 

Evan, 378 

Jefferson, 236 

Mary, 378 
Dawson, A. F., xi 

De Armond, D. A., 229 
De Lacey, 380 
De Soto, Ferdinand, 315 
De Tonty, Henry, 315 
Dean, Henry Clay, 346 
Decisive landings of the world, 301 
Declaration of Independence, 264, 
318 

Signers of, 277 
Decoration Day, 262 
Dedication, iv 
Deer 

along Long Island Sound, 200 

in Connecticut, 200 
Massachusetts, 200 
Pajarito, 213 
Vermont, 200 

Shipment of, 137 
Delaware, 357 

Militia, 379 
Delhi, 162 
Delphi, Oracle of, 266 

Priestess of, 325 
Demetrius Phalerins 

Greeks of, 283, 306, 367 
Demost'ienes, Philippics of, 304 
I >ea Moines 

Capitol, 31 

Eiver, 343 
Devitt, J. A., xi, 3, 61 



434 



MAJOR JOHN F. LACEY 



Dewey, G. F., 254, 259 

Dido, 307 

Diet at Worms, 385 

Dillon, Judge John F., 20, 418 

Diplomatists, English, 339 

Disarmament conference, 259 

Dissete, Miss, 215 

"Dixie," 238, 239, 267, 399 

sung in Congress, 284 
Dodge, G. M., xi 
Dodo, 82, 89, 106 
Dolliver, J. J., 383 

J. P., 383 
Dora Pedro, 337 
Dominion Day Celebration, 268 
Donnell, John, 20 
Douglas Guards, 347 
Douglas, Stephen A., 393 
Dove incident, 55 

protected, 180 
Dover records, 379 
Downs, O. N., 62 

' ' Doxology ' ' sung by Congress, 284 
Drake, G. W., 390 

Mary, 284 
Drinkle, Beulah, 53 
Dubuque Times, 28 
Duck anecdote, 106 

Labrador, 408 
Ducks protected, 180 
Duncan, Major, 407 
Dunne, Edward F., 130 
Duvall's Bluff, 410 

Eastman, E. W., 344, 345 
Eaton, Howard, 196 
Eddyville, 392 
Edison, Thomas, 269, 278 

Inventions of, 325 
Editorial Association, Southeastern 

Iowa. Address, 125 
Edmundson, J. D., 346, 348 

Win., 266 
Education in U. S., 285 
Egret plumes, 146-147, 164 
Egypt, British in, 337 



Eisteddfod at Oskaloosa, 378 
Eldon, Address at, 328 
Eliot, George, 242 
Elizabeth, Queen, 285 

Income, 282, 368 
Elk, 114 

in Olympic Forest Reserve, 200 

Eeserve, 44 
Elkin's Ford, Battle at, xvii, 23, 408 
Elliot, Settlement at, 312 
Elm, Tracy, 36 
Emerson, E. W., 342 
Emery substitute made from petri- 
fied trees, 203, 208 
Emigration, 131 

Westward, Eate of, 299 
Emmetsburg, Address at, 287 
England and Holy Alliance, 330, 331 

endorses Monroe doctrine, 336 

mistress of seas, 318 

violates Monroe Doctrine, 336 
Engle, Nancy, 385 
English, The, as colonizers, 330 
English Sparrow, 49, 396 

Importation forbidden, 142 

Introduction, 137, 142 
English, Thomas, quoted, 83 
Entail in Europe, 131 
Ephesus, Temple of, 80 
"Era of good feeling," 332 
Erwin, A. T., xiii 
Eternal City, 369 
Euphrates, 327 

Evangeline, Quotation from, 319 
Evans, Capt. Joe, 291 

Capt. Eobley D., 284 
Eve, 290 
Eveland, Frank, 293 

Henry, 295 

Lewis, 293 

Address at, 290-300 

Origin of name, 290 
Events in Major Lacey's life, xvii- 

xix 
Ewers, A. F., xiii 
Exploration, French, 315 



IXDKX 



435 



Eye Tooth lot, 343 

Ezekiel, Quotation from, 233 

Fairfield Ledger, 29 
Fallow land, 74, 85, 90, 123 
Farmers interested in bird preserva- 
tion, 165 
Field and Stream, Reprint from, 178- 

180 
Field parks, why created, 247 
Fields, E. A., xiii 
Fifteen decisive battles, 301 
Fish 

in Hudson Bay, 107 

"inconnu, " 107 

"unknown," 107 
Fish-wheels' destructive work, 161 
Fitch, C. L., xiii 
Fitchpatrick, J. A., xiii 
Flag, American, 318 

English, 351 

French, 318, 351 

fund, 54 

German, 351 

on High Seas, 284 

Spanish, 318, 351 
Flathead Indians, 97, 197 

their herd of bison, 97, 156, 196, 
197 
Fletcher, Admiral F. F., 346 
Flickinger, R. E., xiii 
Flood of 1847, 382 

1852, 382, 384 
Florence, 346 
Florida 

bought by TJ. S., 332, 333 

Cost of, 326 

owned by Spain, 317 

Transfer of, 316 
Flower, Gov. R. P., 237 
Flying fox 

Importation forbidden, 142 
Flying machine, 352 
Flying squirrel, 213 
Forest affected by rainfall, 73, 74 

as source of revenue, 115 



as source of water supply, Ins 

Cemetery, 53, 372 

Congress, 92 
destruction 

Asia Minor, 83 
Atlantic Coast, 72, 89 
Prance, 95 
Italy, 83 
Maryland, 70 
Pacific Coast, 71, 72, 39 
fires, 102 

in California, 89 
New York, 104 
Oregon, 89 
Washington, 89 
preservation, 16, 88 
rangers, 191 

reserves, 24, 25, 42, 65, 76, 85, 90, 
99, 103, 109, 134 
breeding places for wild life, 198 
management transferred, 92, 93, 

103 
permanent, 191 
Utility of, 80 
Foresters, 94, 103 
Forestry 

Address, 78-87 
Bureau of, 113 
Department of, 93 
in Europe, 86 

France, 104, 105, 201 
Germany, 104, 201 
Iowa, 93 
Spain, 104 
Movement, 86 
Forrest, General N. B., 404, 411 
Ft. Blakely, 23, 412, 413 
Ft. Curtis, 406 
Ft. Morgan, 413 
Ft. Pierre 

Buffalo herd, 197 
Foster, Major B. B., 409 
Sidney, 323 
Thomas D., xi 
Fountain at Oskaloosa, 348 
Fourth of July Celebration, 267, 268 



436 



MAJOR JOHN F. LACEY 



Fox Indian names, 267 
Fox's Boole of Martyrs, 385 
France 

Army of, 235 

ceded land to Spain, 316 

Crops of, 285, 322 

regained territory in America, 316 

signed treaty of Verona, 331 

withdrew from Mexico, 339 
Franklin, 411 
Franklin, Benjamin, 109, 129, 133, 

213, 276, 277, 353 
Frederick the Great presents sword 

to Washington, 306 
Free trade, 49 
Fremont, J. C, 400 

Journal, 118 

Order by, 400 
French, 4 

claims to U. S., 128 

in American Revolution, 330 

Pink in Oregon, 143 

trappers, 129 
Friends, Old, 290 
Frink, S. G., xiii 
Frits 's School, 391 
Fruit bat, Importation forbidden, 

142 
Funeral procession for Major Lacey, 
53-54 

sermon, 53, 57-59 

Gakves, J. H., 148, 226 
Game dealer convicted, 194 

fowl, 137 

"hog,"" 145, 162 

killers, 40 

law, amendment to, 139-140 
State, 139-140 
Statement regarding, 175 

preserve in forest reserve, 192 

protection, 12, 13, 31, 137, 164 

refuge in Oklahoma, 170 

seized in Chicago market, 173 

Shipping, 170, 173 

Warden, 138, 139, 143 



power given by "Lacey Act," 
170 
Garden of Eden, 290 
Gardiner, Antelope near, 176 
Garfield, James A., 130 
Garret, Eobert, 270 
Gas, Natural, 70 

fields, 82, 89, 95, 162 

Worship of, 106, 162, 325 
Gayoso Hotel, 411 
Geese protected, 180 
Geneva award, 355 
Geneva Lake, 365 
Geological survey, 113 
George, Lake, 365 
George III, 276, 281 

Monument, 268, 281 
Georgetown, 378, 380 
Georgia cedes land to TJ. S., 130 
Germany aggregation of little king- 
doms, 308 

Army of, 235 
Gettysburg, 253 

Battle of, 244 

Lincoln's address at, 250 

Surrender of, 406 
Gibraltar, 258 
Gladstone, W. E., 308 
Godfrey 

Benjamin, 292 

George, 261, 292-293, 391, 392 

of Bouillon, 278 

Samuel, 292 
Gods, Belief in the, 308, 367 

Greek and Roman, 307 
Gold in Mississippi Valley, 287 
Goldsmith's Roman History, 385 
Goodnight herd of bison, 97, 156, 197 
Gould, Jay, 226 
Government formed, 296 
Gow, J. E., xiii 
Grady, Henry W., 323 
Grand Army of the Republic, 53, 54, 

57, 232, 237 

Badge of, 238 
Numbers decreasing, 257 



INDEX 



437 



Grand Canyon, 208 

Reserve, 100, 112, 190 
Granger, Lieut. Col. Robt. S., 413 
Granson, Swiss troops at, 250 
"Grant," The voyage of the, 258 
Grant, U. S., 22, 234-235, 237, 239, 
240, 244, 252, 258, 259, 338, 339, 
353, 394 

at Appomattox, 413 
Shiloh, 281 

Death, 240, 252 

Descendant of, 262 

Soldiers under, 274 
Grasses 

Annual, 120 

as food plants, 118 

native in the west, 117 
Gray, Elisha, 278 

Dr. Robert, 323 
Grazing lands 

belonging to the U. S., 134 
in Texas, 120 
leased, 120 

on public lands, 116 
Great Britain 

Ancestry important in, 262 

approved Monroe Doctrine, 332 

proposed exchange of territory 
with France, 133 

Sea power of, 261 
Great Lakes, Shrinking of, 74 
Great Slave Lake home of bison, 155 
Greece, Sea power of, 261 
Greek civilization, 234, 283 
Greeks, Citadel of, 288 

Combine with other nations, 309 
Greeley, W. M., xiii 
Green, Colonel W. B., 397, 398, 409 
Green, Mr., 399 
Greene, Wesley, xi 
Greenwood, 404 
Grinnell, G. B., 158 

Herald, 33 
Grizzly Bear, 38, 171 
Grouse, 137, 141 

illegally shipped, 137 



1 nt roduction of, 137 
Guadaloupe, L33 

Spring at, 278, 325 
Gulliver, 21 1 

Gulls, Destruction of, 146 
Gunpowder used by Chinese, 312 
"Gushers," 106 

Habeas Corpus Act, 318 
Hagar's Woods, Battle of, 394 
Hague tribunal, 355 
Hamlet, 241, 355 
Hammond, W. C, 20, 418 
Hampton, Wade, 274 
Hancock, John, 276 
Hanna, Mark, 130 
Hannibal, 354 

his camp at Rome, 369 
Harding, W. L., xiii 
Harlan, E. R., xi 

James, 15 
Harper 's Ferry, 305 
Harrington, Dr., 217 
Harrington, F. O., xiii 
Harriott, G. C, 292 
Harris, General Tom, 393, 394 

S., 292 
Harris, Mr., 399 
Harrison, Benjamin, 277 

Benjamin F. T. 

Inauguration, 237, 423 

Carter, 130 

General Benjamin, 272 

W. H., 381 
Hartman, J. C, xiii • 
Harvard College, Founding of, 

305 
Harvest Festival address at Ames, 

367-370 
Harvest Home Festival address, 342- 

349 
Hatch, Vice-consul, 336 
' ' Hatchie, "401 
Hauser, M. A., xiii 
Havana Harbor 

Relics recovered from, 346 



438 



MAJOR JOHN F. LACEY 



Havre 

Railroad to Paris, 359 
Hawkin's division, 413 
Hawthorne, Nathaniel, 83 
Hayden, Ada, xiv 
Hayne, John C, 127 
Haynes, L. J., xiv 
Hayward, W. J., xiv 
Head-waters of streams, 74 
Hebrews' treatment of land, 123 
Helena, Battle of, xviii, 23, 254, 351, 

404, 405, 406 
Henderson, O. J., xiv 
Hendershott, H. B., 20 
Henderson, Thomas, 342 
Hennepin, Louis V., 315 
Hercules, 303 
Herd, Timothy, 118 
Herder, Nomadic, 117 
Herrick, E. S., xiv 

Hewitt, E. L., 44. 210, 211, 217, 221 
Hinkle, A. J., 236 

Thomas, 236 
History of the Confederacy, 238 
Hitchcock, E. A., 220 
Hoffman, C. V., xi 
Hoit, Nick, 291 

Mehanna, 292 
Holbrook, 205 
Holbrook, P. K., xiv 
Holland, Sea power of, 261 
Holloway, Mr., 397 
Holtman and Baker, 343 
Holmes, O. W., quoted, 69, 80 
Holy Alliance, 330, 331, 332, 334, 
336 

City reached by steamship and 
railway, 278 

Land, 355 

Sepulchre visited, 278 
"Home, Sweet Home," 239 
Homestead era, 133 
Homestead bill, 367, 369 
Homesteaders in Kansas, 119 
Homesteads in forest reserves, 99-102 

Pastoral, 116 
Hooker, Gen. Joseph, 244 



Horace, 73, 84 

Hornaday, W. T., xi, 12, 41, 155, 156, 

163, 181, 395, 398, 403, 407 
Hough, Emerson, 39, 42 
Houghton, Mr., 186 
Houston, Secretary David F., 7, 55 
Howard, H. S., xi 
Hudson River, 327, 365 

Headwaters of, 104 
Hudson 's Bay, Animals of, 320 

Bison near, 156 

Boulders of, 309 

Fish in, 107 

Railway, 107 
Hugo, Victor, 337 
Huguenots come to America, 315 
Hull, A., 391 
Hume, David, 402 

Humming birds, Sale of skins of, 147 
Hymns sung at funeral of Mr. La- 

cey, 57 

Illlinois, 129, 288 

bird law, 409 

in Civil War, 394 

part of N. W. Territory, 133 
Immigration, Dangers from, 272 
"The Imperialist," 337 
' ' Improvement ' ' and destruction, 

168 
Incas, Civilization of, 329 
"Inconnu" fish, 107 
Independence Day address, 276-286 
India Portuguese in, 329 
Indian Creek, 357 

names euphonic, 266, 342 

Ocean, 259 

Territory, 321 

wars, Pension roll of, 225 
Indiana, 129 

part of N. W. Territory, 133 
Indians hold land title, 132 

owners of bisons, 154 

Religion of, 308 
Indies became Spanish, 330 
Ingersoll, R. J., 302 
Ingham, Harvey, 37 



INDEX 



439 



Innsbruck, Work of women in, 298 
Insectivorous birds, 144 

protected in Georgia, 143 
Interior, Department of, 112 
Interstate Commerce 

Bill protecting game and birds, 

141-153 
in game, 138, 139, 141 
Inventions since Augustan age, 325 
Iowa 

admitted into Union, 312 

attitude toward unfortunates, 312 

bird law, 409 

boundaries, 287-288 

built vipon limestone, 285 

center of fertility, 287, 288, 370 

climate, 309, 311 

description of, 382 

Digest, xviii, 413 

exhibit at Centennial, 358 

First settlers in, 309 

Generosity of, 270 

Geological survey, 384 

Growth of, 269 

Illiteracy in, 311 

Minerals of, 309 

Name derived from Indian, 324 

National Guard, 53 

Infantry 

Seventh, 401 

Eighth, 413 

Twenty-second, 401 

Thirty-second, 401 

Thirty-third, 403, 405, 406, 408, 
413 

Thirty-fourth, 413 
Park & Forestry Association, v 

members, xiii-xv 

Eesolutions of, 65 
part of Louisiana, 285, 310, 321, 
323 

Michigan, 323 

Missouri, 323 

Wisconsin, 323 
Eecord of, in Civil War 

Cavalry, ninth, 401 

Infantry 



Second, 393, 401 

Third, 329, 393, 394, 396, 402, 

Hit, 420 
Fifth, 397 
School house in, 288 

system, 368 
soldiers in Civil War, 367 
State College founded, 370 
Horticultural Society 
Library, xiv 
Resolutions, 65 
"Iowa" christened, 284 
Iowa City Citizen, 27 

Eepublican, 29 
Ireland demands home-rule, 297 
Iron in Mississippi Valley, 287 
Irrigation, 86, 90, 92, 104, 134 
in Pajarito, 213 
interests, 198 
of arid lands, 104 
Isabella of Spain, 287 
sold jewels, 279, 353 
Islam, 126 

Israel, Army of, 233 
Italy, a chaos of principalities, 308 
Desolation in, 115 
Landing of JEneas in, 301, 307 
Iuka, 397 
Ivy, 72 

Jack and the Beanstalk, 385 
Jack the Giant Killer, 385 
Jackson, Stonewall, 250, 257, 305 

his soldiers, 258 
James I, 128 
James II, 251 
Jamestown, 357 

John Smith at, 301 

Oaks of, 84 
Japanese students 

Anecdote, 234 
Jasper in petrified forest, 209 
Jasper County, 307 

Settlement of, 312 
Jane Jones, 352-354 
Jay, John, 129 
Jefferson, Thomas, 277, 317 



440 



MAJOR JOHN F. LACEY 



criticized for Louisiana Purchase, 
316 

Death of, 277 

made many plans, 324 

ordered Louisiana Purchase, 285, 
310, 333 
Jenkin's Ferry, Battle at, xviii, 22, 

23, 407, 408 
Jerrel, B. O., xi 
Jerusalem, 355 

Archaeological School at, 210 

Eailway to, 326 
Jimez Mts., 44, 219 
Jinghis Khan, 248 
Job, Quotation from, 73, 84 
Johns, H. A., xiv 
Johnson, Andrew, 259 

I. C, xi 

Judge, J. K., 419 

Professor, 419 

Tom, 130 
Joliet, Louis, 315 
Jones, C. J., 156, 157 

Price, 293 
Josh Billings, 362 
Journalists, Attitude toward game 

preservation, 176 
Juarez, Benito, 338, 414 
Judd, Eev. Allen, xiv, 53, 57-59 
Juliet, 241 
Julius Cassar, 275 

landing in Britain, 301 
Juneberry, 83 

Kalbach, George, xi 

Helen, 53, 57 

Warren, 53, 57 

W. H., xi 
Kansas, best pnrt nearest Iowa, 288 

organized regiment, 311 

part of Louisiana, 285-321 
Kansas City, 400 
Kaye, G. F., xiv 
Keating, W. H., xi, 62 
Keats, John, epitaph, 135 
Keen, Land commissioner, 210 



Keller, Helen, 78 

Kellogg, Harriette S., v, xi, xvii, 377 

Kennerville, 413 

Kenoyer, L. A., xiv 

Kentucky Giant, 389 

Kenworthy, W. S., 347 

Keokuk xvii, 21 

Ketchikan, 365 

Khartoum, 279, 326 

King, Ben, 352 

' ' King George 's men, ' ' 303 

Kirkstall Abbey, 380 

Kirksville, 393 

Kirkwood, Samuel J., 15, 346 

Kivas, 214 

Klan, 215 

Knights of Pythias, 54 

Knox, Philander C., 110 

Knoxville, 416 

Knoxville Journal, 29 

Kokomo, Gas at, 325 

Glass factory at, 266 
Koran, 126 

Kosciusko, Will of, 282 
Kougorok, 365 

La Barge Lake, 365 
La Rabida Convent, 281 
La Salle, Eobert C. de, 315 
Lacey, Berenice (See Saywer, Bere- 
nice Lacey) 

Eleauor (See Brewster, Mrs.) 

Eleanor Patten, 63, 377, 379, 380 

Eliza Adeline, 384 

Isaac, 381, 384, 386 

James, xvii, 381, 382, 384, 386, 
389, 390, 392, 393, 394, 400, 402 

John, 378 
Lacey, John F. 

"Act," xix, 167, 170, 173, 190 

Addresses of, v, 65-370 

admitted to Bar, xviii, 5, 23, 37, 
63, 415 

Advocated game protection, 60 

aids old soldiers, 50, 51 

Ancestry of, 377-381 



INDEX 



441 



approachable, 50 
as 

Adjutant General of Division, 
xviii, 412 

Alderman. 42] 

Assistant Adjutant General of 
Division, xviii, 407 

bricklayer, 4 

captain, 4 

citizen, 9 

city solicitor, 23, 421 

conservator, 7 

debater, 27, 32 

First Lieutenant, xviii, 22, 405 

lawyer, v, xviii, 3, 4, 7, 8, 18, 19, 
37, 63, 416, 418-421 

Mayor, 4, 37, 63 

Member of Congress, xix, 5, 7, 
8, 14, 15, 16, 18, 23, 38, 64, 421 

Member of Legislature, xviii, 23, 
64, 417 

President of State Bar Associa- 
tion, xix, 3 

prisoner of war, xvii, 4, 21, 63 

private soldier, v, xvii, 4, 21, 22, 
63 

Sergeant Major, xvii, 22, 403 

statesman, v, 19, 33 

teacher, xvii, 391 
at home, 34, 64 

Attitude toward Confederates, 373, 
began practice of law, xviii, 23, 65, 

415 
Birthplace, xvii, 19, 37, 63, 377, 

381 
brevetted Major, xviii, 413 
Characterization, 166-167 
Congressional life, 421-423 
Death, xix, 10, 26-34, 36, 52, 56, 

58, 60, 61, 65, 371-372 
discharged from army, xvii, 402 
Education, xvii, 9, 19, 37, 63, 383, 

386, 390 
elected to State Legislature, xviii, 

417 
Enlistment, xvii, 4, 21, 37, 63, 392 



Events in his life listed, xvii-xix 

Funeral, •">:-' ,; 1 

his capacity for labor, 8, 9, 10 

journey west, 3SS 

outside studies, 416-417 
in army of observation, 33S 
Law practice, 416-421 
learned the alphabet, 3Nf> 
Letters, 182, 185-186, 189-192 
Life in Wheeling, 386, 387 
Life on farm, 390-392 
Marriage, xviii, 35, 63, 416 
Military career, 21-23, 392-416 
moved to Oskaloosa, 19 
organized information system, 409- 

410 
paroled as prisoner of war, xvii, 

398 
Political career, 23-27 
Political addresses, 36 
prisoner of war, xvii, 396 
read law, xvii, 402, 414 
Eecreation, 9 
Reenlistment, xviii, 403 
Relieved of army service, xviii, 415 
Religious belief, 64 
Travels in Alaska, xix, 9, 47, 417 

Cuba and Porto Rico, xix 

Europe, xviii, xix, 9, 47, 417 

Mexico, xix 

Western U. S., 89 
Vacations, 9, 417 
Writings, v, xviii, 20, 35, 64, 365, 

408, 418 
Lacey, John M., Jr., 63, 292, 377, 

378, 380, 381, 385, 386, 387, 388, 

390, 402 
John M., Sr., 379 
John S., 389 
Marion, xviii, xix, 381 
Martha Newell, iv, xii, xviii, xix, 

35, 63, 264, 415 
Mary, 379, 381, 386 
Mary Hurley Clifton, 379 
Raymond F., xviii, 380 
Robert, 378, 385, 387, 388, 391 



442 



MAJOR JOHN F. LACEY 



Spencer, 378, 379 

Manumission papers by, 380 

William, 389 

Wm. E., xii, 384, 390, 420 
Lacey and Shepherd, 420 
Lake Albert Nyanza, 279 

Bonneville, 271 

George, 365 

of the Woods, 319 
Lakes 

Drainage of, 74, 85 

Iowa, 74 
Lamoreux, H. H., xiv 
Land department and forest reserves, 

112, 113 
Land-grant Colleges, Bill authoriz- 
ing, 370 
Land grants in 

aid to railroads, 134 
to Connecticut, 128, 129 
Massachusetts, 128 
New York, 129 
Virginia, 128 

lying fallow, 74, 85, 90 

title held by Indians, 132 
Landings, Decisive, 301 
Lane, J. R., xii 
Lannes, Marshal, 304 
Law, C. W., xiv 

Law, John, Speculations of, 316 
Lazell, F. J., xii 
Lead in Mississippi Valley, 287 
Learning dispersed in 1453, 265, 325 
Leasing rights limited, 120 
Lebanon, Cedars of, 84 
Lee, John S., 291 

Eobert E., 237, 257, 258, 274, 305 
Surrender of, 413 

Thomas, 291 
Lees, J. H., xiv 
Letter to Col. Shields, 182 
Lewis and Clark, 410 

Expedition, 117, 324 
Lexington, 394, 396, 397 
Liberty, 394, 395, 396, 400 
Liberty Cap, 419 

Torch of, 282 



Lichens, 72 
Lieu land law, 99 
Lilly, Quotation from, 384 
Limestone soil, Value of, 321, 322 
Lincoln, Abraham, 250, 256, 308, 
353, 369, 409 

Address at Gettysburg, 250 
Descendant of, 262 
Example of, 242 
Quotation from, 245 
Revoked order of Fremont, 
400 

James Rush, Letter from, 373 
Lisbon, Sea power of, 261 
"Little Blue", 396 
Little Rock, Campaign against, 23, 

407-408 
Lions, Mountain, 97 
Livingston, L. F., 48 

R. R., 317, 333 
Livingstone, David, 351 
Locust Creek, 393 
Lofland, Captain John, 403 
Loftus, Father, 27 
Logan, Virginia K., 53 

Gen. J. A., 347 
Lombard, Frank, 238, 239 

Jules, 238, 239 
Lombardy, Irrigating ditches of, 322 
Lomond, 365 
Longfellow, H. W., 

quoted, 319 
Lookout Mountain, 

Battle, 244 

Field, 254 
Lord's Prayer, 264 
Lorraine, 235 
Lough, Al., 392 
Loughridge, Judge Wm., 5, 390, 415, 

419 
Louisiana, 321 

bought from France, 332 

ceded to Spain, 316 

Purchase, 129, 133, 285, 310, 313- 
327, 332 
Boundaries, 310 






INDEX 



44.'] 



Centennial, 284 

Cost, 321, 326 

Money for, 319 

Soil of, 321 

States carved from, 285, 321, 

327 
Treaty, 315-316, 319 
sold to France, 316 
taken by French, 315 
Louisville, 389 
Lucerne, 365 
Lummis, C. F., 211, 218 

Quimu, 218 
Luther, Martin, 385 
Luxor, Euins of, 211 
Lyell, Sir Charles, 299, 310 

McAllister, Chris, 20 
Macaulay, T. B., quoted, 243 
Macbride, T. H., xii 
McCall, Ed., xiv 
McClain, Judge Emlin, 20 
McClure, David, 392, 393 

Jesse, 293, 392, 393 

John, 392 

Thomas, 291 

William, 392 
McCoy, Benjamin, xii, 62, 419 
McDermott, J. TL, 187 
MacDonald, G. B., xiv 

John, xiv 
Macdonnell, Wm, 383 
McEldowey, Eobert, 383 
McEntee, Mr. 291 
McGhee, E. E., xiv 
Mackey, Col. C. H., 419 
McKinley, Wm., 7, 17, 30, 305, 325 
McKinstry, General, 403 
McLean Act, 182 
McMillen, Liston, 62, 419 
McMullin, Captain, 347 
McNeil, Colonel J. F., xii, 54 
McNett, William, 19 
McPherrin, J. M., xiv 
McPherson, General J. B., 234, 281, 

393 



McPherson, Judge, Smith, 8 
Madison, James, 333 
Madison Home, 344 
Magnetic needle used by Tartars, 
312 

pole, 73 
Mahaska County, 266, 290, 292, 342 

Bar Association, 61, 62, 63 
Resolutions by, 63, 65 
Mahaska, Statute of, 344, 346 
Mahon, S, xii 

Maine, Belies of the, 346, 348 
Mair, Charles, 154 
Malcolm, J. O., xii, 62 
Malta, 258 
Mammoth, 105 
Mammoth Hot Springs, Buffalo at, 

197 
Mandan, River voyage to, 324 
Manila Bay, 284 

Dewey's victory, 254, 258 
Manitou Springs, 278 
Mankin, Mr., 221 
Mansfield, J. M., 33 
Manual training avocation of 

Greeks, 270 
Manumission papers, 380 
Marathon, 234, 254, 283 

Battle of, 280, 367 
Marbois, Francois, Marquis de, 317 
March to the Sea, 244 
"Marching through Georgia". 238 

sung in Congress, 284 
Mariner's prayer, 262, 275 
Mark Twain, Anecdote of, 75, 394 
Marks, Mr., 343 
Marlborough, Duke of, 250 
Marquette, Jacques, 315 
Mars, Rays from, 269 
Marshall, John, 46 
Martin, Billy, 291 

Mrs., 344 
Martineau, Harriet, 195 
Maryland, 354 

First settlers in, 315 

laws, 82 



444 



MAJOR JOHN F. LACEY 



makes conditions of federation, 
129 
"Maryland, My Maryland", 238, 
267 

sung in Congress, 284 
Mason and Dixon's line, 274, 308 
Massachusetts 

claims, 130, 305 

Land grant, 128 

Plantation, 128 
Massacre by Indians, 163 
Mastodon, 82, 89 
Matamoras, 415 
Mayflower, Cost of, 287 

Deaths on, 301 

immigrants, Descendants of, 302 

Landing of, 301 
Mayflowers, 301 
Maximilian, 337, 339, 414, 415 
Mediterranean, a Eoman lake, 324 
Mehanna, John W., 392 
Mejia, 339, 415 
Memorial Day, 256 

Confederate, 254 
Memphis National Cemetery, 261 
Mentone, a resort for invalids, 208 
Mershon, W. D., Book by, 184 

Letter from, 187-189 
Metternich, Prince, 331 
Mexican Purchase, 133 
Cost of, 326 

War gave Texas to U. S., 332 
Pension roll of, 225 
Soldiers of, 260 
Mexico, City of, 314 

Civilization destroyed by Spain, 
331 

Commerce with, 332 

Cortez in, 354 

Emperor of, 337 

Empire of, 338 

Gulf of, Animal life of region, 
320 

Separated from Spain, 334 

Travels in, xix 

Trouble with, 22 



Meyers, Philip, 345 
Michael Angelo, 346 
Michigan claimed by Massachusetts, 
130, 305 

part of N. W. Territory, 133 

yields part of Ohio, 131 
Migratory birds, 41 

Annual journey of, 175 

belong to no one state, 191 

Federal protection of, 178-180 

Law regarding, 175, 185 

Letter about, 185 

Protection of, 398 
Milliman, J. C, xii 
Mills bill, 49 
Miltiades, 234, 280 

Greeks of, 283, 367 
Mines of Indian Territory, 423 
Minnesota, 287 

part of Louisiana, 285, 321 

part of N. W. Territory, 133 
Miramon, 339, 415 
Mission Eidge Field, 254 
Mississippi River, 404 

boundary of U. S., 130 
Discovery of, 128 

Scheme, 316 

Valley center of power and wealth, 
287, 360 
Minerals of, 287 
Missouri part of Louisiana, 285, 321 
Mistinger, Frank, 293 
Mobile, Capture of, xviii, 414 

Storming of, 240, 403 
Mobile Bay, 415 
Mohammed, 126 

Mohammedan fond of tobacco, 265 
Mojaves, 217 
Mondell, F. W., 100 
Mongoose introduced into Jamaica, 

142 
Moninger, W. R., xiv 
Monroe, James, agent in Louisiana 
Purchase, 285, 310, 317 

Biography of, 333 
Monroe, Battle of, 394 



INDEX 



1 15 



Capital of Iowa, 310 

first cabin in Jasper Co. built at, 
310 
Monroe Doctrine, 318, 328-341 

Congress should endorse, 336 

Text of, 334-335 
Montana, Action of legislature of, 
118 

part of Louisiana, 285, 321 
Montesquieu, Baron de, Epigram of, 

252 
Monuments in battle field parks, 247 
Monuments, National, 44 

Preservation of, 65, 210 
Moore, Colonel, 394 

J. L., 54 
Morbeck, G. C, xiv 
Morgan, E. G., 53, 57 

John, 382, 388 
Morris, Joe, 295 
Morrison, T. N., xiv 
Mosaics at St. Marks, 264 
Mosquito Coast, 340 
Moss, 72 

Mothers determine standard, 298 
Mt. Ararat, 301 
Mt. McGregor, 240, 252 
Mt. Hood, 89, 161 
Mt. MeKinley, 366 
Mt. Eanier National Park, 207 
Mt. St. Elias, 366 
Mt. Sinai, 258 

Mountain lions destroy buffalo, 197 
Mountains denuded of forests, 86 
Mueller, H. A., xiv 
Mulberries, Eussian, for birds, 149 
Mulligan, General, 397, 398 
Mulligan's Men, 398, 399 
Mummies made into paints and fer- 
tilizers, 204 
Myers, Philip, 419 

Nagelstad, O. T., xiv 
Napoleon, 127, 317 
at Austelritz, 239, 240 
Elba, 244 
Waterloo, 248 



defeated by Russia, 259 

Diplomacy of, 318 

Empire of, 330 

in Russia, 244 

sold Louisiana, 285, 319, 332 

War chest of, ::l!) 
"Napoleon the Little", 337 
Narragansett Bay, 1-^ 

River, 128 
"Narrows", The, 312, 343 
Nash. F. T., 62 

National Commission for the Protec 
tion of Migratory Birds, "> 

Geographic Society, 69 

Monuments, 65, 210 

Reserves as propagating grounds, 

198 
Nations, Character of builders of, 

311 
"Natural Bridge" in Petrified For- 
est, 205 
Natural Gas, 70, 106, 162, 165 
Nauvoo, Mormon Temple at, 390 
Navigation interests, 198 
Nebraska, Boundaries of, 288 

part of Louisiana, 285, 321 
Neill, Colonel, 37S 
Needham, Lieut.-Gov. J. A. L., 

419 
Negroes, Exodus of, 404 
Neptune, Prayer to, 262 
Nevada, 73 
Neutrality, French and English idea 

of, 338-339 
New England anti-slavery crusade. 
305 

Influence of. 306 
New Forest created by Normans, 

195 
New Jersey, 354 
New Martinsville, xvii. 19, 37, ::77, 

382, 383, 384, 388 
New Mexico, Deserts of, 94 

Dr. Lummis's description of, 
211 

Legislature appropriates money 
for museum, 211 



446 



MAJOR JOHN F. LACEY 



New Orleans, 310 

Change of ownership, 318 

Purchase of, 317, 333 
' ' New Purchase ' ' opened, 342 
New York, 354 

cedes land to U. S., 130 
New York City, 357 
New York Zoological Garden, xi 

Society, 15 
Newcomerstown, 379 
Newell, Martha (See Lacey, Martha 

Newell) 
Newman, Cardinal, 78 
Newton, 49 
Newton, Bar of, 419 
Niagara Falls, 89 

Anecdote about, 320 
Nicaraugua, 340 

Canal through, 339, 340 

Port seized by English, 336, 
337 
Nice, a resort for invalids, 208 
Nichols, A. S., 266, 343 
Niger, 326 
Nile, Eiver, 284, 327 

Source, 326 
Nineveh, 135 
Noah, 301 
Noe, J. B., 344 
Noe's Ark, 344 
Nome, xix, 302 
Norfolk, 357, 378 

Normans, created New Forest, 195 
North America became Anglo-Saxon, 

330 
North Carolina and forestry, 115 
North Dakota part of Louisiana, 

285, 321 
Northmen, Discovery of, 279 
Northwest saved, 129 
Northwest territory, 133 

boundaries, 132 

claimed by Virginia, 305 
Nunivak, 366 

Oaks, Virginia, 84 



Ohio, 73, 129 

part of N. W. Territory, 133 
Oklahoma, 15, 171 

part of Louisiana, 285, 321 
"Old Guard", 25, 30 
Old Guard of Napoleon, 248 
Old Settlers' Eeunion, 348 
Old World Nations 

First settlements unknown, 309 

Nobility of, 304 

Origin of, 303 
Olympic forest reserve, 200 

elk reserve, 210 

Elk saved from destruction, 200 

Games, 270, 325 

Range, 44 
Onyx in petrified forest, 209 
Opals in petrified forest, 209 
Oppenheimer, A., xii 
Ordinance of 1785, 131, 133 

1787, 132, 134 
Oregon, 136, 339 

claimed by U. S., 133 

grain, 123 
Orr, Ellison, xiv 
Osceola, 342 
Oskaloosa, v, xvii, 3, 23, 266, 342, 

382, 390, 403 

City park, 342 

Dedication of, 348 

College, 343 

Daily Herald, xii, 21, 24, 26, 33 

House, 344 

named for Indian princess, 342 

Times, 28 
Ottumwa Courier, 32 
Oxford, 350 

Pacific Railroad bill, 367 
and bison, 154 
Padua, Statues of, 345 
Paestum, 271 
Pajarito, 210-219, 221, 222, 223 

Canyon, 221 

region, 44, 222 

National Park, 221 



INDKX 



117 



Palenquie ruins, 211 
Palestine, Desolation of, 1 1 5 
Palmer, E. L., xiv 

Capt. Fred, 347 

Dr. T. S., 181 
Palmyra, 135 

Pammel, L. H., v. xii, 36-47 
Paradise named by Adam, 290 
Paris, Railroad to Havre, 359 
Parrots, Flight determines Colum- 
bus's course, 280 

Indian, Sale of, 147 
Partridge hunting illegal in Mich- 
igan, 188 
Pasturing on forest reserves, 86, 

101 
Paton, J. M., 217 
Patriotism a common ground, 264 
Patten, Eleanor, 379 

H. B., 379 

Isaac, 377, 378, 379 

Manumission papers by, 380 

Rachel, 378 

William, 377, 378 
Patten's Mill, 379 
' ' Pauper legislation ' ', 225 
Payne & Sons, xiv 
Pearson, R. A., xiv 
Peasants, French, 75 
Pella, 357 
Pellett, F. C, xiv 
Penn, William, 46, 128, 351 
his colony, 354 

College, xix, 46, 350 
Colors of, 350 

Day, 350, 356 
Pennsylvania, 354 

boundary line, 130 

First settlers in, 315 

issue with Connecticut, 130 
Pension office, 

Administration, 226, 227, 228 

roll, 226, 368 
Pensions for disability, 228, 229 

Revolutionary soldiers, 
224 



Boldiera in Mexican War, 

230, 231 
soldiers in War of L812, 

225 
Boldiers' widows. 231 
eh on, 224 231 
Pericles, Days of, 306 
Perkins, Ebenezer, 342 

G. D., ::2 
Peru, its civilization destroyed, 33] 
Peters, E. ('.. xiv 
Petersburgh, Evacuation of, 240 

Grant's course at, 237, 240 
Petrified forests, 7. 37, I I U 
203, 207, 209, 210 
Emery from, 203 
National Park, 207 
Origin of, 204, 208 
Vandalism in, 203 
"Petrified religion", 205 
Pheasant, Chinese, 136 
Phil Kearney Post, 54 
Philadelphia, 357, 358 

Exposition in, 358 
Philip, James, 197 
of Spain, 368 
"Scotty", 197 
Philippine Commission, 115 
Islands, 259 
Cost of, 326 
Forestry in, 115 
Philipps, Wendell, 304 
Phillips, Mrs.. 287, 344 
O. C. G., 62 
T. G., 266, 344 
Phonograph, 269 
Photography, Advance in, 352 
Pickett, General, 244 
Pig-sticker, 71 
Pigeon, Passenger, 1S4, 1S9 
protected, 180 
roost, 176 

Wild, 17, 96, 106, 141, 11 7 
Disappearance of, 195 
Pilgrim day, 301 
fathers, 301 



448 



MAJOR JOHN F. LACEY 



Pilgrims, Lauding of, 301, 305 

Pimlieo, 337 

Pinchot, Gifford, 93, 94, 96, 1S7 

Pinnock, 385 

Pioneers in Iowa, 323 

Hardships of, 293 

not -weaklings, 304 
Pitt, William, Death of, 319 
Placer mining law, 102 
Plantain in New Zealand, 143 
Plato, 266 

Plover protected, 180 
Plutarch, 266 
Plymouth Bock, Landing at, 210, 

301 
Poison Springs, Battle at, xviii, 23, 

408 
Political dead heads, 241 
Pope, General John, 394 
Port Arthur, Defenders of, 301 
Port Hudson, Victory at, 254 
Porter, Pearle, 53 
Porto Rico, xix, 326 
Portugal, 287, 316 

shared in South America, 331 

to improve condition of people, 

334 
Portugeese, 281, 329 
Pot hunter, Destructive work of, 
137, 138, 169 

Bill against, 146 

Photographed, 162 
Potomac, 327 
Powell, James, 32 
Powers, Hiram, 389 

Greek slave of, 389 

"Hell" by, 389 
Prairie chickens, 137 

illegally shipped, 137, 170 
in Iowa, 144 
migratory birds, 181 
protected, 182 

City, Address at, 307, 312 
Settlement of, 312 

Schooner, 300 
Prairie d' Anne, Battle of, xviii, 23, 

407 



"Prayer meal", receptacle for, 215 
Prentiss, General B., 406 
Prescott, Harriet, 78 
President of U. S., Power in regard 

to forest reserves, 110, 111 
Preston, Judge B. W., xii, 62 
Price, General Sterling, 396, 398, 

405, 407, 410 
Printing employed by Chinese, 312 
Prize shooting, 148 
Proctor, Eedfield, 200 
' ' Progressive movement ' ', 25 
Prouty, S. F., 25 
Prussia in Holy Alliance, 330 

signs Treaty of Verona, 331 
Public domain, 125-135 

Lands Committee, 7 

school in Greece, 270 
Pueblo Indians, 215 
Punch, Anecdote from, 87 
Puritans, 315 
Putnam, H. S., xii 
Puye, 212 

Canyon, 213 

Quail, Illegal shipment, 137 

in Iowa, 144 
Quakers in America, 315 
Queretaro, 339, 415 
Quincy, 400 

Quiucy, Josiah, Anecdote of, 262 
Quiriga, Ruins, 211 

Babbits in Australia, 142, 143 
Race dominance, 297 
Rail protected, 180 
Railway Digest, 20, 64 
Lacey's, 20, 64, 418 
Railways of the future, 326 
Rain and forests, 85, 89 
Rainmaker, 84 
Ramon Vigil Grant, 221 
Ranges over-stocked, 119 
Rankin, E. N., xii 
Rats arboreal in Jamaica, 142 
Ray, W. G., xii, 33 
Raynal, Abbe, 354 



IXDKX 



449 



Rebel Army, Roster of, 409 
Rebellion, War of, See Civil War 
Reclamation from Nature 

British Isles, 72 

Europe, 72 

Italy, 72 
Recreation, Excerpt from, 166-167 
Red Sea, 259 

Reed, Thomas B., 275, 42:; 
Reeve, Moses, 292 
Reeves, Elmer, xiv 
Register and Leader, 37 
Reign of Terror, 272 
Religious freedom sought by settlers, 

315 
Remus, 307 
Resolutions upon death of Major 

Lacey, 60-65 
Resources, National, 69, 89 
Revolution, American, 

Influence of, 299 

Laceys in, 378, 379 
Revolutionary War 

England learned lesson by, 330 
Reynolds, S. V., xii, 62 
Rice, James A., 63, 342 

Samuel A., xviii, 4, 21, 22, 35, 37, 
63, 402, 403, 405, 406, 409 
Death of, 407 
Life of, 408 
Rice, Meyers & Rice, 63, 403, 419 
Richard the Lion Hearted, 278 
Richards, W. A., 100 
Richmond, Fall of, 22 
Richmond, Mo., 398 
Rickey, Mrs. A. B., xii 
Riley, James Whitcomb, 83, 94 
Rio Grande, Army of, 22 
Riots of 1893, 244 
Ritchie, Leitch, 358 
Rito de los Frijoles, 211, 212 

Canon, 214 
River and harbor improvements, 

357-360 
Roar, Ben, 397, 39S 
Robb, M. A., 391 
Robinson, J. M., 148 



J. T., 398 

Yankee, 3 18 
Robinson 's < lircus, 3 I B 
Bodey, B. S., 210 

Roman Lake, 324 
Roman legion, Influence of, 245 
Rome 
Archaeological School, 210 

Downfall of, 265 

ignorant or learned, 245 

Sea power of, 261 
Rominger, Ellsworth, 32 
Romulus, 303, 307 
Roosevelt, Theodore, 7, 38, LOO, 347 

Annual Message, 199 

Career of, 305 

had confidence in Major Lacey, 7, 
24, 43, 183 

Letter from, 24, 183, 184 
Rose Hill, Army Tost, 236 
Rosecrans, Gen. W. S., 410 
Rosenberger, Absalom, 354 
Roses, red and white, Union, 2-1 8 
Ross, Elmer, xiv 
Rowe, Lena, v 
Rowe, Professor, 391 
Russia abolished slavery, 242 

defeated Napoleon, 259 

in Holy Alliance, 330 

signed Treaty of Verona, 331 

sold Alaska, 134, 332 
Russian thistle in Dnkotas, 14.". 
Ryan, Judge D., 419 

Sac City Sun, 24 

Sac names, 267 

Sackville-West affair, 49 

St. Helena, Napoleon at, 319 

St. Louis, 404 

Lewis & Clark return to, .121 
Message from Athens to. '■'•-'> 
Valuation of, 321 

St. Mark, 264 

St. Mark's Cathedral. 264, 329 

St. Paul, 162 

St. Paul's Cathedral, 249 

Salamis, 284 



450 



MAJOR JOHN F. LACEY 



Salmon destroyed on Pacific coast, 
107, 161 

in Connecticut, 82, 161 
Salomon, Colonel C. E., 409 
Sampson, E. S., 419 
Samuels, B. M., 346 
San Francisco forest reserve, 112 
San Ildefonso, 210, 213 

Treaty of, 316 
San Joaquin Valley, Elk in, 114 
San Salvador, 301 

Columbus landed upon, 314 
Santa Clara, 210 
Santa Fe 210 

Archaeological school, 210 

Pounding of, 210 

Palace of the Governors, 211 
"Santa Maria" The, 353 
Santiago, 284 

Victory at, 25S 
Saracen's Head, 277 
Sargent, A. H., xii 
Sawyer, Berenice Lacey, v, xii, xviii, 

xix, 35, 46, 367, 371, 377 
Sawyer, Carroll, xii, 371 
Sayers, Mr., 227, 230 
Schavoir, Dr. P., 187 
Schee, G. W., xii 
Scipio, 354 
Scotchmen virile, 302 
Scotland asks for home rule, 297 
Scott, Colonel John, 21, 394, 401 

Lieut., 400 
Searle, Capt. C. E., 411 
Secession, Eesult of success, 235 
Sedan, Battle of. 318 
Seevers, G. W., xii, 61, 63, 344 

Poem by, 345 

Judge W. H., 5, 266, 419 
Seine, 327 

Seminole names, 267 
Seneca, 326 

Sermon on the Mount, 256, 264, 277 
Service berry, 71, 83, 111 
Seton-Thompson, Ernest, 146 
Settlers in reserves, 101 

Old, Meeting of, 307 



1776, Patriots of, 260 
Seward, W. H., 134, 326 
Shackleford, Dorsey, 149 
Shad, Migratory, 192 
Shakespeare, Wm., 79, 80, 312 

quoted, 80, 249 
Shangle, L. T., 62 
Shannon, J. A., 53 
Shaw, Wm., 54 
Shelbina, 394 
Shelby, Gen, 408, 409 
Shepherd, W. E., xviii, 63, 64, 392, 

393, 420 
' ' Sheridan ' ', Voyage of the, 259 
Sheridan, General Philip, 4, 22, 

244 
Sheriff, H. H., xii, 62 
' ' Sherman ' ', Voyage of the, 259 
Sherman, John, 422, 423 

J. S., 136 

W. T., 237, 244, 401 

Soldiers under, 274 
Sherman-Johnston Truce, 414 
Sherman Law, 363 
Shields, G. O., xii, 16, 181, 182, 187, 

193 
Shields' Magazine, Article from, 

203-206 
Shiloh, Address, 46 

Battle of, 234, 280, 292, 348, 401 
Fiftieth anniversary of, 247 

Park, 253 
Shimek, B., xii 
Shiras, George 3rd, 178, 191 
' ' Shouldered his axe, ' ' Origin of, 

345 
Shull, H. W., xiv 
Sidon, Sea power of, 261 
Sieyes, Count E. J., 272 
Sigourney, Bar of, 416 
Silver in Mississippi Valley, 287 
"Side hunt," 162 
Simpson, Bishop, 381 
Sioux City, 3 

Journal, 32 
Skagway, 365 
Skunk River, 343 



1NDKX 



451 



Slavery 

in Brazil, 282 
Kussia, 282 
United States, 236, 282 

not mentioned in Constitution, 288 

tolerated in Ohio, 383 
Slaves' food regulated by law, 82 

Importation into U. S., 288 
Smith, Alexander, quoted, 69, 80 

Gen. A. J., 410, 411, 414 

Charles Emery, 358 

C. F., 350 

Gen. E. Kirby, 414 

Hoke, 226 

John, 84, 301 

W. I., xii 

W. T., 348 
Snipe protected, 180 
Snows, Conservation of, 102 
Soil-making, 322 
Soils of Iowa exhibited, 358 
Soldier, Young, 244 
Soldiers, Characteristics of, 240 

Correspondence of, 246 

Decorating graves of, 260 

mustered out, 243 

Keunions of, 347 
Song birds protected, 13, 194 
Sons of Veterans, 242, 262 
Soothsayers augur from night of 

birds, 280 
Sopor, C. M., xiv 
South America, 344 

Commerce with, 332 

divided between Spain and Portu- 
gal, 331 

settled by Spanish, 314, 330 
South Carolina settled, 315 
South Dakota part of Louisiana, 

285, 321 
South Spring Mills, 302 
Spain, 281, 287, 316 

destroyed civilization in New 

World, 331 

in possession of Florida, 317 

losing power in Cuba, 337 

sold Florida, 326, 332 



To improve condition of people, 
334 

Spanish colonics independent, 332 
Spanish Fort, rviii, U3 
in America, 329 
goldseeker, 129 

law on metals, I .". 1 

Needle, 382 

Republics recognized, 336 

War, 260, 284, :;<)<> 
Sparrow, English, 19, 137, 165, 
Spartanville, 350 
Spencer, A. 1'., xii 

H. L., xii 
Sportsman a friend of birds, 14f> 
Sportsmen, American 

League of, 37, 141, 166, L93, 407 
Address before. 166 
Gift of, 38 

Object of, 193 
"Spring shooting" prevented, 179 
Springer, Frank, 218 
Springs, Conservation of, 102 
Spurling, Col. A. B., 413 
Spurrell, J. A., xiv 
Standing army source of danger, 

273 
Stanley, Henry, .".HI 

Wilson, .".4:; 
Stanton, Edwin M., 381 

E. W., xiv 
Star of empire moves westward, 327 
"Star Spangled Banner," 239, 267 

Sung in Congress, 284 
Starling, Importation forbidden, 142 
Starr, Frederick, 216 
Stars and Stripes, 318 
State vs. Pleasant Anderson, 420 
States' rights in forest reserves, 110, 
111 
protected by game law, 
137, 138, 139 
Steel rails test of national achieve 

ment, 268 
Steele. General Frederick, xviii, 4. 

21, 22, 23. 35, 338, 339, 407, 408, 

4(19. 410, tli', 413, HI. 415 



452 



MAJOR JOHN F. LACEY 



Stephens, E. F., xiv 

Stephens, F. C, xv 

Sterling, Earl of, 128 

Stern, A., xii 

Stiles, E. H., xii, 19 

Stock Exchanges, 361-364 
gambler, 362 

Stone, Gov. George M., 401, 419 

Stony Point, Anecdote of soldier at, 
273-274 

Stuart's Iowa Colonels and Regi- 
ments, 21 

Suez Canal, 258, 340 

Summers, H. E., xv 

Sumter, 392 

"Sunfish", 381 

Superior, Lake, Wealth of, 129 

Superstition of Indians, 216 

Sunflower State, 288 

Supreme Court of Iowa, Decision of, 
20 

"Swallow", 388 

Swalm, A. W., xii 
Letter from, 371, 372 
Mrs. A. W., xii 

Swans protected, 180 

Swiss troops at Granson, 250 

Syracuse, 354 

Tafp, Paul, xv 
Taft, Wm. H., 7, 347 
Tallahatchie River, 404 
Talleyrand, 317 
Tanana, 366 
Taney, R. B., 46 
Tanner, Corporal, 260 

Message to, 261 
Taos pueblo, 44, 219 
Tartars used magnetic needle, 312 
Tasmania, Settlers in, 273 
Taylor, Gen. Dick, Confederate 
forces under, 338 

Rose S., xv 
Telephone, Use of, 265 
Temple center of Grecian city, 2S8 
Tennyson, Quotation from, 73, 84, 

267, 296 



Terraces built, 86 

Terrapin, use restricted, 82, 161 

Terre Noir Creek, Battle of, xix, 23, 

407 
Terrefenoir Creek (See Terre Noir 

Creel) 
Territorial acquisitions, Cost of, 326 
Teuton combines with other nations, 

309 
Tewa Indians, 212 

Spectacle presented by, 217-218 
Texas, acquired by U. S., 332 

Emigration to, 382 

Oil in, 106 

U. S. army in, 338 
Thames, 327 
' ' The Narrows ' ', 266 
Thermopylae, Heroes at, 253 
Thistle a pest in Canada, 142, 

143 
Thomas, Gen., Soldiers under, 274 

H. G., 200 
"Thomas Swann", 389 
Thompson, L. O., xv 
Tiber, 327 
Tigris, 327 
Timber policy, 75 
Timothy, 118 
Tipperary, 301 
Toledo blades, Construction of, 278, 

2S3 
Town meeting, 306 
Townsend, Capt., 407 
Tracy Elm, 36 
Trafalgar, 284 

Trappers, Destructive work of, 143 
Treaty of 1803, 318 
Tredick, Henry, 344 
Tree farming, 111 

maxims, 87 
Trees, Oskaloosa, 344, 345 
Trenton, Federal Court at, 130 
Trout stream preserved, 18S 
Truax, E. R., xv 
True, G. C, 61, 62 
Trueblood, B. F., 355 
Trumbull, Captain, 395, 401 



INDUX 



4."):; 



Tschrege, 212 

Canyon, 213 
Turkey, Wild, 108, 213 
Turkish claim of land near Joppa, 

132 
Turks captured Constantinople, 265 
Tweed River, 235 
"Tyler", 406 
Tyler County, 382 
Tyre, Sea power of, 261 
Tyrolese Alps, 298 

UNITED STATES, Cost of Govern- 
ment, 368 

Department of Agriculture, 41, 
42, 86 

Department of Interior, 42 

Fish Commission, 188 

Not visited by Columbus, 314 
Uruguay Railroad, 320 
Usonians, 303 
Utica, 393 
Uxmal, Ruins, 211 

Valley Forge, Veterans of, 282 
Van Delashmutt, Mr., 291 
Velocipede, 359 
Venezuela oppressed by England, 

336, 337 
Venice, 329 
A'er Ploeg, C, 62 
Veragra, Duke of, 262 
Verona, Treaty of, 331 
Veteran reunion, Address, 232 
Veterans, number decreasing, 234 
Vicksburg, 407 

Siege of, 238, 250, 254, 401, 404 

Surrender, 406 
Villages near Mississippi River, 3S8 
Vinton Eagle, 28 
Virginia, 94, 354 

Claims of, 305 

land grant, 128 

Monroe governor of, 333 
Voltaire, 116 
Von Tungeln, G. H., xv 

Wadswobth, J. W., 185 



Waite, .1. I... 30 

Wall's seeks home ru]<\ L*i<7 

Walker, .1. B., 361 

Walker Museum contains cast of 

Pajarito lions, 216 
Wall Street, 363 
Walling, C. S., xii 

Walnut trees, 7."> 

Walrus, Destruction of, 169 

War of L812, Pension roll, 225 

Soldiers of, 260 
Ward, Artcnius, lL'o 
Warren, General, Death of, 279 

John II., 392, 393 
Washington (D. C), Return of 

Lewis & Clark to, 324 
Washington, George, not a humor- 
ist, 284 

Sword of, 306 

Lewis, 306 
Washington Territory, 339 

claimed by U. S., 13:: 
Water sources protected, 198 

supply affected by forests, 86 
Waterloo, 247 

Battle of, 318 
Watrous Nursery Co., xv 
Wayne, Anthony, 27 3 
Wealth produced by labor, 29S 
Weather and climate, 73 
Weaver, J. B., xix, 5, 6, 48, 19, 

347 
Webster, Daniel, 127 
Weekly, Mr., 293 
Weeks, John W., 185 
Weeks Bill, 180 
Weeks-McLean Law, 41 
Weitzel, (ion. Godfrey, -112 
Welborn, Judge, 185 
Welfare of Nation. Forest vital to. 

88 
Welsbach burner, 278 
Wentworth, E. N.. xii 
Wesley, John, 2.",S 
West, C. B.. 394 

General J. R., 409 
West, Building the, 310 



454 



MAJOR JOHN F. LACEY 



West Indies, Columbus landed in, 
314 
Population destroyed by Spain, 
331 

West Point, 252, 354 

West Virginia, xvii, 4 

Laeey family moves to, xvii, 382 

Western Reserve a part of Connecti- 
cut, 130, 131, 305 

Wetzel County, 382 

Wheeler, Major J. B., 409 

Wheeling, Laeey family moves to, 
xvii, 382, 385, 3S6 

White Hart, 277 

White House, 369 

White, Justice E. D., 8 

Whitehorse Rapids, 365 

Wichita Forest Reserve, 100, 190, 
199 
declared a game refuge, 100, 170 
National Bison Range, 15, 176, 
177 

Wide Awakes, 347 

Wilcox, Willis, 291 

Wild game and settlement of Amer- 
ica, 39 

Wilderness battle ground, Visit to, 
253 

Williard's Equity, 403 

Willcockson, K. E., 61, 62, 63 

William the Conqueror, 301, 380 

Williams, Capt. 272 
Jesse, 342 
J. C, 61 
M. T., 266, 342 

Wilmington, 357, 358 
Address at, 356-360 

Wilson, D. C, xv 
Capt. Robert, 292 

Wilson original package bill, 139 

Wilmer, Bishop, 283 

Winnipeg, Plants of, 320 

Winslow, Judge H. S., 419 

Wisconsin claimed by Massachusetts, 
130 
claims part of Illinois, 130 
Game wardens in, 410 



Most fertile in west, 288 

part of N. W. Territory, 133 
Wise, H. A., 306 
Wofford, 350 
Woman as hod carrier, 298 

her position in America, 298 
Woman's Relief Corps, 54, 242 
Women helped build Iowa, 311 
Women 's Clubs, Address before, 78- 
87 

Iowa Federation of, 42 
Wood, Col. W. D., 412 
"Wood buffalo," 156 
Woodcock protected, 180 
Woodin, G. D., 419 
Woodlot Farm, 76 
Woodsfield, 381 
World Review, 172 
AVren, Sir Christopher, Monument, 

249 
Wylie, R. B., xv 
Wyoming, 73 

part of Louisiana, 321 

state law, 100, 198 

X-ray, Discovery of, 269, 352 

"Yankee Doodle", 238, 267 
Yankee Robinson, 348 
Yankees, 303 

Yazoo Pass Expedition, 23, 404 
Yazoo River, 404 

Yellowstone Park, 7, 9, 13, 15, 38, 
60, 96, 97, 100, 198, 207 

an educator in game protection, 
171 

Buffalo in, 176 
York and Lancaster, War of, 248 
Yorktown, Veterans of, 282 
Young, Lafayette, 31 
Yucatan, Explorations in, 211 
Yukon, xix, 366 

Zama, Battle of, 318 
Zinc in Mississippi Valley, 287 
Zoological Parks, Buffalo in, 156 
Zuni pueblo, 44, 219 



